r saddle broncho. They had started on their
fifteen-mile ride in the cool of the evening, and following the road
back for a few miles were just striking off toward the distant hedge of
cotton woods that lined the little stream by her home when the storm
came upon them.

There was a lone pine tree hardly larger than a bush about a half-mile
from the track, and riding to this, the girl, whose name was Josephine,
had dismounted to seek its scant protection, while the herder tried to
hold the frightened horses. As peal on peal of thunder resounded and the
electric lights of nature played tag over the plain, the horses became
more and more unmanageable and at last stampeded, with old Paz muttering
Mexican curses and chasing after them wildly.

After the storm passed, Josephine waited in vain for Paz and the
bronchos, and then debated whether she should walk toward her home or
back to the corrals. In either direction the distance was long, and the
adobe soil is very tenacious when wet, and the wayfarer needs great
strength to carry the load it imposes on the feet. As she stood there,
thinking what it was best to do, a sound came to her ears from the
direction of the timber and home, which she recognized in an instant,
and without waiting to debate further, she turned and ran with all her
strength, not toward her home, but away from it. Across the waste of
stunted sage she sped, the cool breeze upon her face, every muscle
strained to its utmost. Nearer and nearer came the sound; the deep,
regular bay of the timber wolf. These animals are large and fierce; they
do not go in packs, like the smaller and more cowardly breeds of wolves,
but in pairs, or, at most, six together. A pair of them will attack a
man even when he is mounted, and lucky is he if he is well armed and
cool enough to despatch one before it fastens its fangs in his horse's
throat or his own thigh.

As the brave girl ran, she cast about for some means of escape or place
of refuge. She decided to run to the railroad track and climb a
telegraph pole--a feat which, owing to her free life on the ranch, she
was perfectly capable of. Once up the pole, she could rest on the
cross-tree, in perfect safety from the wolves, and she would be sure to
be seen and rescued by the first train that came along after daybreak.

She approached the track over perfectly dry ground. To reach the
telegraph poles, she sprang nimbly into the ditch; and as she did so,
she saw a stream o