g its way
through brush. Boone paused to listen, but his eye never wandered from the
bareheaded, motionless figure silhouetted against the skyline in the ruddy
evening glow. He had shifted his rifle so that it lay in both hands, ready
for immediate action.

Melissy, horror-stricken, had sat silent, but now she found her voice.

"He is unarmed!" she cried to the cowpuncher.

He made no answer. Another sound in the brush, close at hand, was
distracting his attention, though not his gaze.

Just as he whipped up his rifle Melissy sprang forward. She heard the
sound of the explosion fill the draw, saw Bellamy clutch at the air and
slowly sink to the ground. Before the echoes had died away she had flung
herself toward the inert body.

The outlaw took a step or two forward, as if to make sure of his work, but
at the sound of running footsteps he changed his mind, swung to the saddle
and disappeared among the rocks.

An instant later Bob Farnum burst into view.

"What's up?" he demanded.

Melissy looked up. Her face was perfectly ashen. "Phil Norris ... he shot
Mr. Morse."

Farnum stepped forward. "Hurt badly, Mr. Morse?"

The wounded man grinned faintly. "Scared worse, I reckon. He got me in the
fleshy part of the left arm."

CHAPTER XIII

OLD ACQUAINTANCES

"You wanted to see me?"

The voice had the soft, slow intonation of the South, and it held some
quality that haunted the memory. Or so Melissy thought afterward, but that
may have been because of its owner's appeal to sympathy.

"If you are Miss Yarnell."

"Ferne Yarnell is my name."

"Mr. Bellamy asked me to call on you. He sent this letter of
introduction."

A faint wave of color beat into the cheek of the stranger. "You know Mr.
Bellamy then?"

"Yes. He would have been here to meet you, but he met with an accident
yesterday."

"An accident!" There was a quick flash of alarm in the lifted face.

"He told me to tell you that it was not serious. He was shot in the arm."

"Shot. By whom?" She was ashen to the lips.

"By a man called Duncan Boone."

"I know him. He is a dangerous man."

"Yes," Melissy nodded. "I don't think we know how very dangerous he is. We
have all been deceived in him till recently."

"Does he live here?"

"Yes. The strange thing is that he and Mr. Bellamy had never met in this
country until a few days ago. There used to be some kind of a feud between
the families. But you must know more about that than I do.