y past the bunk-house with her face
turned from it and her thoughts dwelling terrifiedly upon what lay
within. Once she was past she began running, as if she were trying to
outrun her thoughts, Jim watched her gravely, untied Snake and stood at
his head while she mounted, then walked ahead of her to the gate and
opened it for her.

"Yore nerves are sure shot to hell," he blurted sympathetically as she
rode past him. "I guess you need a ride, all right. Snake's plumb
safe, so yuh got no call to worry about him. Take it easy, Raine, on
the worrying. That's about the worst thing you can do."

Lorraine gave him a grateful glance and a faint attempt at a smile, and
rode up the trail she always took,--the trail where she had met Lone
that day when he returned her purse, the trail that led to Fred
Thurman's ranch and to Sugar Spring and, if you took a certain turn at
a certain place, to Granite Ridge and beyond.

Up on the ridge nearest the house Al Woodruff shifted his position so
that he could watch her go. He had been watching Lone and Swan and the
dog, trailing certain tracks through the sagebrush down below, and when
Lorraine rode away from the Quirt they were in the wagon road, fussing
around the place where Frank had been found.

"They can't pin nothing on _me_," Al tried to comfort himself. "If
that damn girl would keep her mouth shut I could stand a trial, even.
They ain't got any evidence whatever, unless she saw me at Rock City
that night." He turned and looked again toward the two men down on the
road and tilted his mouth down at the corners in a sour grin.

"Go to it and be damned to you!" he muttered. "You haven't got the
dope, and you can't git it, either. Trail that horse if you want
to--I'd like to see yuh amuse yourselves that way!"

He turned again to stare after Lorraine, meditating deeply. If she had
only been a man, he would have known exactly how to still her tongue,
but he had never before been called upon to deal with the problem of
keeping a woman quiet. He saw that she was taking the trail toward
Fred Thurman's, and that she was riding swiftly, as if she had some
errand in that direction, something urgent. Al was very adept at
reading men's moods and intentions from small details in their
behaviour. He had seen Lorraine start on several leisurely,
purposeless rides, and her changed manner held a significance which he
did not attempt to belittle.

He led his horse down the side o