hers. "Then I did tell----"

"I just wanted to say," Lone interrupted her, "that I knew all the time
it was just a nightmare. I never mentioned it to anybody, and you'll
forget all about it, I hope. You didn't tell any one else, did you?"

He looked up at her again and found her studying him curiously.
"You're not the man I saw," she said, as if sue were satisfying herself
on that point. "I've wondered since--but I was sure, too, that I had
seen it. Why mustn't I tell any one?"

Lone did not reply at once. The girl's eyes were disconcertingly
direct, her voice and her manner disturbed him with their judicial
calmness, so at variance with the wildness he remembered.

"Well, it's hard to explain," he said at last. "You're strange to this
country, and you don't know all the ins and outs of--things. It
wouldn't do any good to you or anybody else, and it might do a lot of
harm." His eyes flicked her face with a wistful glance. "You don't
know me--I really haven't got any right to ask or expect you to trust
me. But I wish you would, to the extent of forgetting that you saw--or
thought you saw--anything that night in Rock City."

Lorraine shivered and covered her eyes swiftly with one hand. His
words had brought back too sharply that scene. But she shook off the
emotion and faced him again.

"I saw a man murdered," she cried. "I wasn't sure afterwards;
sometimes I thought I had dreamed it. But I was sure I saw it. I saw
the horse go by, running--and you want me to keep still about that?
What harm could it do to tell? Perhaps it's true--perhaps I did see it
all. I might think you were trying to cover up something--only, you're
not the man I saw--or thought I saw."

"No, of course I'm not. You dreamed the whole thing, and the way you
talked to me was so wild, folks would say you're crazy if they heard
you tell it. You're a stranger here, Miss Hunter, and--your father is
not as popular in this country as he might be. He's got enemies that
would be glad of the chance to stir up trouble for him. You--just
dreamed all that. I'm asking you to forget a bad dream, that's all,
and not go telling it to other folks."

For some time Lorraine did not answer. The horses conversed with
sundry nose-rubbings, nibbled idly at convenient brush tips, and
wondered no doubt why their riders were so silent. Lone tried to think
of some stronger argument, some appeal that would reach the girl
without frightening her