walk.

His eventless course had continued some minutes before a thought came
to him of the direction he was following, with the possibility that he
was wrong.

"I wonder if we are on the right track, Queenie?" he said, addressing
his animal, as was his custom when they were alone. "It would be
strange if we didn't drift away from our bearings. Hello! that can't
be Dick Hawkridge's ranch; we haven't gone far enough for that; but
what the mischief can it be, unless a fire that some one has started
in the open?"

The starlike twinkle of a point of light suddenly shone out directly
in advance. It puzzled him by appearing only for a moment, when it
vanished as quickly as it entered his field of vision.

This fact suggested that it was within some dwelling and had been
extinguished, or was shut from sight by being moved past a window or
open door to another point in the interior.

"We are so near, Queenie, we may as well go farther," he added, not
unmindful of his danger from those who were making such a hot search
for him. He kept his horse on a walk, maintaining a keen watch between
the dainty ears that were already pricked up as if she knew something
was likely to happen quite soon.

Advancing in this deliberate fashion, the outline of one of those
long, low wooden structures so common in the West was gradually defied
in the moonlight, and he knew he was approaching the home of some
ranchman.

But whose? was the question that perplexed him. He recalled that some
of his travelling had been done at a high rate of speed, but the
distance between the Whitney and Hawkridge ranches was fully a dozen
miles, and he was sure that that space had not been covered by him
since bidding his friends good-by earlier in the evening, especially
as he had not followed a direct course.

"Can it be?" he exclaimed, with a sudden suspicion. "Yes, by gracious!
What a blunder!"

The exclamation was caused by the sight of a young man, with one arm
in a sling, who came forward to welcome him.

He had returned to the Whitney home, which he supposed was miles away,
and this was his old friend Fred, who came smilingly forward and said,
as he recognized him:

"I am glad, indeed, to see you, Mont; we heard the sound of the firing
and feared that something had happened to you."

"Nothing at all, thank you, and nothing to Queenie--but that reminds
me," he added, slipping out of the saddle; "she acted once as though
she had been hit, thoug