tered a muffled cry of relief, as the scene in a
depression which had been the bed of an ancient river flashed before her
with theatric completeness. In the bottom of it were five men, two
moving and three stationary. Jim Galway and Ropey Smith were walking
side by side, keeping a measured step as they paced off a certain
distance, while Bill Lang and Pete Leddy and Jack stood by. Leddy and
Lang were watching the process inflexibly. Jack was in the costume which
had flushed her curiosity so vividly on the pass and he appeared the
same amused, disinterested and wondering traveller who had then come
upon strange doings.

She stopped, her temples throbbing giddily, her breaths coming in gasps;
stopped to gain mastery of herself before she decided what she would do
next. On the opposite bank of the _arroyo_ was a line of heads, like
those of infantry above a parapet, and she comprehended that, in the
same way that news of a cock-fight travels, the gallery gods of Little
Rivers had received a tip of a sporting event so phenomenal that it
changed the sluggards among them into early risers. They were making
themselves comfortable lying flat on their stomachs and exposing as
little as possible of their precious bodies to the danger of that
tenderfoot firing wild.

It was a great show, of which they would miss no detail; and all had
their interest whetted by some possible new complication of the plot when
they saw the tall, familiar figure of Jasper Ewold's daughter standing
against the skyline. She felt the greedy inquiry of their eyes; she
guessed their thoughts.

This new element of the situation swept her with a realization of the
punishment she must suffer for that chance meeting on Galeria and then
with resentful anger, which transformed Jack Wingfield's indifference to
callous bravado.

Must she face that battery of leers from the town ruffians while she
implored a stranger, who had been nothing to her yesterday and would be
nothing tomorrow, to run away from a combat which was a creation of his
own stubbornness? She was in revolt against herself, against him, and
against the whole miserable business. If she proceeded, public opinion
would involve her in a sentimental interest in a stranger. She must live
with the story forever, while to an idle traveller it was only an
adventure at a way-station on his journey.

She had but to withdraw in feigned surprise from the sight of a scene
which she had come upon unawares a