d that Cross' friends
were talking of lynching McHale, and perhaps you. I didn't believe it
at first, but after a while I got nervous. Everybody was asleep, and
anyway there was nobody I could ask to go; so I came myself."

"And Tom and I will never forget it, Sheila," said Casey. "I don't know
another girl who could have made it after a fall like that in this
storm."

"It was perfectly splendid of you!" cried Kitty Wade, with hearty
admiration.

Clyde, obeying a sudden impulse, leaned forward and kissed the bruised
forehead. Sheila was unused to such endearments. She had no intimates
of her own sex; with the women she was courteously distant, repelling
and rather despising them. She had felt Clyde's instinctive hostility,
and had returned it. Surprised and touched by her action, the tears
started to her eyes. Clyde put her arms around the slender, pliant
waist.

"Come with me, dear, and get some sleep. You're badly shaken up. We'll
sleep in, in the morning."

"But I have to go back," Sheila objected. "Nobody knows I've gone. I
have to be back by morning. And then there's Beaver Boy! My heavens! I
left him standing outside. Oh, I've got to----"

Casey gently pressed her back as she would have risen.

"I'll stable the horse, old girl; and I'll be at Talapus by daylight to
tell them where you are. Don't you worry, now, about anything--not even
Sandy. If he's gone back to the hills I'll bet he finds Tom. They'll be
all right."

"Do you think so, Casey? And will you do that much for me? I'm awfully
sore and tired. Every bone and muscle of me aches."

"You poor little girl." He raised her in his arms. "Come on, girls, and
put her to bed. I'll carry her in."

CHAPTER XXV

With the first streaks of dawn Casey and Simon mounted and rode for
Talapus. But before they had ridden five hundred yards Casey discovered
an extraordinary thing. In his ears sounded a sustained, musical
murmur, nothing less than the happy laugh of running water.

"By the Lord Harry!" he ejaculated. "There's water in the ditches."

Simon nodded. "Ya-as. _Hiyu chuck_ stop, all same _skookum chuck_," he
observed, signifying that there was a full head of it, like a rapid.

The ditches were running to the brim. After the soaking rain of the
night the water was not immediately needed, but it showed that the
irrigation company's works no longer controlled the supply. When they
reached the river they found a swirling, yellow torrent runni