her
luggage to-day--and I believe I must be getting home. I was only out
for a little ride."

She thanked him again for the trouble he had taken and rode away. Lone
turned off the trail and, picking his way around rough outcroppings of
rock, and across unexpected little gullies, headed straight for the
ford across Granite Creek and home. Brit Hunter's girl, he was
thinking, was even nicer than he had pictured her. And that she could
believe in the nightmare was a vast relief.

CHAPTER VII

THE MAN AT WHISPER

Brit Hunter finished washing the breakfast dishes and put a stick of
wood into the broken old cook-stove that had served him and Frank for
fifteen years and was feeling its age. Lorraine's breakfast was in the
oven, keeping warm. Brit looked in, tested the heat with his gnarled
hand to make sure that the sour-dough biscuits would not be dried to
crusts, and closed the door upon them and the bacon and fried potatoes.
Frank Johnson had the horses saddled and it was time to go, yet Brit
lingered, uneasily conscious that his habitation was lacking in many
things which a beautiful young woman might consider absolute
necessities. He had seen in Lorraine's eyes, as they glanced here and
there about the grimy walls, a certain disparagement of her
surroundings. The look had made him wince, though he could not quite
decide what it was that displeased her. Maybe she wanted lace
curtains, or something.

He set the four chairs in a row against the wall, swept up the bits of
bark and ashes beside the stove, made sure that the water bucket was
standing full on its bench beside the door, sent another critical
glance around the room, and tip-toed over to the dish cupboard and let
down the flowered calico curtain that had been looped up over a nail
for convenience. The sun sent a bright, wide bar of yellow light
across the room to rest on the shelf behind the stove where stood the
salt can, the soda, the teapot, a box of matches and two pepper cans,
one empty and the other full. Brit always meant to throw out that
empty pepper can and always neglected to do so. Just now he remembered
picking up the empty one and shaking it over the potatoes futilely and
then changing it for the full one. But he did not take it away; in the
wilderness one learns to save useless things in the faint hope that
some day they may become useful. The shelves were cluttered with fit
companions to that empty pepper can. Brit though