of it.

"I'm plumb out of matches. I wonder if you can let me have some," he
said, still speaking too carelessly to reassure her. "So you stuck it
out in Rock City all through that storm! That's more than what I'd
want to do."

She did not answer that, but once on the door-step Lorraine turned and
faced him. Quite suddenly it came to her--the knowledge of why she did
not like this man. She stared at him, her eyes wide and bright.

"Your hat's brown!" she exclaimed unguardedly. "I--I saw a man with a
brown hat----"

He laughed suddenly. "If you stay around here long you'll see a good
many," he said, taking off his hat and turning it on his hand before
her. "This here hat I traded for yesterday. I had a gray one, but it
didn't suit me. Too narrow in the brim. Brown hats are getting to be
the style. If I can borrow half a dozen matches, Miss Hunter, I'll be
going."

Lorraine looked at him again doubtfully and went after the matches. He
thanked her, smiling down at her quizzically. "A man can get along
without lots of things, but he's plumb lost without matches. You've
maybe saved my life, Miss Hunter, if you only knew it."

She watched him as he rode away, opening the gate and letting himself
through without dismounting. He disappeared finally around a small
spur of the hill, and Lorraine found her knees trembling under her.

"Ket, you're an awful fool," she exclaimed fiercely. "Why did you let
me give myself away to that man? I--I believe he _was_ the man. And
if I really did see him, it wasn't my imagination at all. He saw me
there, perhaps. Ket, I'm scared! I'm not going to stay on this ranch
all alone. I'm going to saddle the family skeleton, and I'm going to
ride till dark. There's something queer about that man from Whisper.
I'm afraid of him."

After awhile, when she had finished her breakfast and was putting up a
lunch, Lorraine picked up the nameless gray cat and holding its head
between her slim fingers, looked at it steadily. "Ket, you're the
humanest thing I've seen since I left home," she said wistfully. "I
_hate_ a country where horrible things happen under the surface and the
top is just gray and quiet and so dull it makes you want to scream.
Lone Morgan lied to me. He lied--he lied!" She hugged the cat
impulsively and rubbed her cheek absently against it, so that it began
purring immediately.

"Ket--I'm afraid of that man at Whisper!" she breathed miserably
against i