ho could have sent it? Rosario would answer no
questions. She snatched the note, tore it into fragments, chewed them into
a pulp. Then, still shaking her head obstinately, hurriedly left the
room.

But at least it meant hope. Her mind flew from her father to Jack Flatray,
Bellamy, young Yarnell. It might be any of them. Or it might be O'Connor,
who, perhaps, had by some miracle escaped.

The minutes were hours to her. Interminably they dragged. The fear rose in
her that MacQueen might come in time to cut off her escape. At last, in
her stocking feet, carrying her shoes in her hand, she stole into the
hall, out to the porch, and from it to the shadows of the cottonwoods.

It was a night of both moon and stars. She had to cross a space washed in
silvery light, taking the chance that nobody would see her. But first she
stooped in the shadows to slip the shoes upon her feet. Her heart beat
against her side as she had once seen that of a frightened mouse do. It
seemed impossible for her to cover all that moonlit open unseen. Every
moment she expected an alarm to ring out in the silent night. But none
came.

Safely she reached the big rocks. A voice called to her softly. She
answered, and came face to face with Boone. A drawn revolver was in his
hand.

"You made it," he panted, as a man might who had been running hard.

"Yes," she whispered. "But they'll soon know. Let us get away."

"If you hadn't come I was going in to kill him."

She noticed the hard glitter in his eyes as he spoke, the crouched look of
the padding tiger ready for its kill. The man was torn with hatred and
jealousy.

Already they were moving back through the rocks to a dry wash that ran
through the valley. The bed of this they followed for nearly a mile.
Deflecting from it they pushed across the valley toward what appeared to
be a sheer rock wall. With a twist to the left they swung back of a face
of rock, turned sharply to the right, and found themselves in a fissure
Melissy had not at all expected. Here ran a little canyon known only to
those few who rode up and down it on the nefarious business of their
unwholesome lives.

Boone spoke harshly, breaking for the first time in half an hour his moody
silence.

"Safe at last. By God, I've evened my score with Black MacQueen."

And from the cliff above came the answer--a laugh full of mocking deviltry
and malice.

The Arkansan turned upon Melissy a startled face of agony, in which
despair and