became swift sword-thrusts of blinding light that seemed to stab deep
the earth. Lorraine ran awkwardly, her hands over her ears, crying out
at each lightning flash, her voice drowned in the thunder that followed
it close. Then, as she neared the sombre group of buildings, the
clouds above them split with a terrific, rending crash, and the whole
place stood pitilessly revealed to her, as if a spotlight had been
turned on. Lorraine stood aghast. The buildings were not buildings at
all. They were rocks, great, black, forbidding boulders standing there
on a narrow ridge, having a diabolic likeness to houses.

The human mind is wonderfully resilient, but readjustment comes slowly
after a shock. Dumbly, refusing to admit the significance of what she
had seen, Lorraine went forward. Not until she had reached and had
touched the first grotesque caricature of habitation did she wholly
grasp the fact that she was lost, and that shelter might be miles away.
She stood and looked at the orderly group of boulders as the lightning
intermittently revealed them. She saw where the road ran on, between
two square-faced rocks. She would have to follow the road, for after
all it must lead _somewhere_,--to her father's ranch, probably. She
wondered irrelevantly why her mother had never mentioned these queer
rocks, and she wondered vaguely if any of them had caves or ledges
where she could be safe from the lightning.

She was on the point of stepping out into the road again when a
horseman rode into sight between the two rocks. In the same instant of
his appearance she heard the unmistakable crack of a gun, saw the rider
jerk backward in the saddle, throw up one hand--and then the darkness
dropped between them.

Lorraine crouched behind a juniper bush close against the rock and
waited. The next flash came within a half-minute. It showed a man at
the horse's head, holding it by the bridle. The horse was rearing.
Lorraine tried to scream that the man on the ground would be trampled,
but something went wrong with her voice, so that she could only whisper.

When the light came again the man who had been shot was not altogether
on the ground. The other, working swiftly, had thrust the injured
man's foot through the stirrup. Lorraine saw him stand back and lift
his quirt to slash the horse across the rump. Even through the crash
of thunder Lorraine heard the horse go past her down the hill,
galloping furiously. When she could