s
guard. For the Register flinched, staggered, his arrogant face grew
mottled, his arm went up. He fell back a step, silent, quivering,
leaning heavily on a chair. The Marshal gave him a questioning glance.
Jeff kept on.

"You're prominent in politics, business, society, the church. You've a
family to think of. It's up to you, Mr. Stratton. Is it worth while? Had
we better drop it with a dull, sickening thud?"

Stratton collapsed into the chair, a shapeless bundle, turning a
shriveled, feeble face to the Marshal in voiceless imploring.

Unhesitating, Hobart put a hand on his shoulder. "That's all right, old
man! We won't give you away. Brace up!" He nodded Jeff to the door. "You
win!" he said. Leo followed on tiptoe.

"Why, the poor old duck!" said Jeff remorsefully, in the passage. "Wish
I hadn't come down on him so hard. I overdid it that time. Still, if I
hadn't----"

At the Hondo Bridge Jeff looked back and waved a hand. "Good-by, old
town! Now we go, gallopy-trot, gallopy, gallopy-trot!" He sang, and the
ringing hoofs kept time and tune,

"Florence Mehitabel Genevieve Jane,
She came home in the wind an' the rain,
She came home in the rain an' the snow;
'Ain't a-goin' to leave my home any mo'!'"

"Jeff," said the mystified Ballinger, spurring up beside him, "what has
the gray-haired Register done? Has murder stained his hands with gore?"

Jeff raised his bridle hand.

"Gee! Leo, I don't know! I just taken a chance!"

CHAPTER I

THE PITCHER THAT WENT TO THE WELL

"When I bend my head low and listen at the ground,
I can hear vague voices that I used to know,
Stirring in dim places, faint and restless sound;
I remember how it was when the grass began to grow."

--_Song of The Wandering Dust_,
ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH.

The pines thinned as she neared Rainbow Rim, the turfy glades grew
wider; she had glimpses of open country beyond--until, at last, crossing
a little spit of high ground, she came to the fairest spot in all her
voyage of exploration and discovery. She sank down on a fallen log with
a little sigh of delight.

The steep bank of a little canyon broke away at her feet--a canyon which
here marked the frontier of the pines, its farther side overgrown with
mahogany bush and chaparral--a canyon that fell in long, sinuous curves
from the silent mystery of forest on Rainbow Crest behind her, to w