ain't going to help any. Was it Frank or Lone? They's a dead man laid
out on this ranch. Who is it?"

"F-frank," Lorraine stammered, backing away from him. "H-how did you
know?"

"How did it happen?" Brit's eyes were terrible.

Lorraine shuddered while she told him.

"Rabbits in a trap," Brit muttered, staring at the low ceiling. "Can't
prove nothing--couldn't convict anybody if we could prove it. Bill
Warfield's got this county under his thumb. Rabbits in a trap. Raine,
you better pack up and go home to your mother. There's goin' to be
hell a-poppin' if I live to git outa this bed."

Lorraine stooped over him, and her eyes were almost as terrible as were
Brit's. "Let it pop. We aren't quitters, are we, dad? I'm going to
stay with you." Then she saw tears spilling over Brit's eyelids and
left the room hurriedly, fighting back a storm of weeping. She herself
could not mourn for Frank with any sense of great personal loss, but it
was different with her dad. He and Frank had lived together for so
many years that his loyal heart ached with grief for that surly,
faithful old partner of his.

But Lorraine's fighting blood was up, and she could not waste time in
weeping. She drank a cup of coffee, went out and called Jim, and told
him that she was going to take a ride, and that she wanted a decent
horse.

"You can take mine," Jim offered. "He's gentle and easy-gaited. I'll
go saddle up. When do you want to go?"

"Right now, as soon as I'm ready. I'll fix dad's breakfast, and you
can look after him until Lone and Swan come back. One of them will
stay with him then. I may be gone for three or four hours. I'll go
crazy if I stay here any longer."

Jim eyed her while he bit off a chew of tobacco. "It'd be a good thing
if you had some neighbour woman come in and stay with yuh," he said
slowly. "But there ain't any I can think of that'd be much force. You
take Snake and ride around close and forget things for awhile." He
hesitated, his hand moving slowly back to his pocket. "If yuh feel
like you want a gun----"

Lorraine laughed bitterly. "You don't think any accident would happen
to _me_, do you?"

"Well, no--er I wouldn't advise yuh to go ridin'," Jim said
thoughtfully. "This here gun's kinda techy, anyway, unless you're used
to a quick trigger. Yuh might be safer without than with it."

By the time she was ready, Jim was tying his horse, Snake, to the
corral. Lorraine walked slowl