lip on the bank, just behind horse and rider. The girl cried an abrupt warning. "Behind the bluffs rim. Above you—see the smoke? Come back!" Even before he drew his own gun she fired at the thin trail of powder smoke eddying from the summit of the bluff. A second shot ripped the water. Tom bent over and put the shelter of the pony between himself and the unseen marksman. The powder smoke was a poor mark, but he threw two bullets up that way and raced through the deep part of the ford to the farther bank. He was now in a bad trap, for the trail led sharply up between a cleft in the bluff, and he was exposed to whoever lay along that rim and watched him. Still, he galloped on, hearing the girl crying at him from behind, hearing her horse splash through the ford. He twisted in the saddle, half angry. "Don't follow me! Get to shelter!"
His pony took the steep grade at great irregular jumps and came out on high ground several hundred yards from the edge of the cliff. He stopped, seeing nothing. The land on this side of the river was tortured with pockets and folds of earth—excellent concealment for the ambusher. Moreover, this rugged terrain led away to the right into a series of ridges. Possibly by now the man was retreating. Tom slid from his horse and spent some time inspecting the ground. The sing of those bullets had come from the barrel of a rifle; here he stood, a blessed fine target. So he dropped to a knee as the girl raced out of the mouth of the cleft and flung herself down beside him. "Oh, that was foolish!" she lectured him. "He could have killed you out there in the river! I saw his hat rising up. Made him duck, too! Where are you going?"
"Think he's pulled back for shelter. I'm going over to find out."
She protested so sharply that he delayed the move. "Supposing he's still lying in those pockets? He'll kill you the first shot. Let me ride around to that ridge on the right and scout from the high ground while you close in. I can keep him entertained if he's still opposite us."
"No. My Lord, Lorena, this isn't your fight. What made you cross the river?"
"Oh, nonsense, this is a free country, isn't it? You talk like all the other men! I can take care of myself."
"It's not your quarrel," he repeated, irritable. "Now lie flat while I inch along."
"If you are going to be that foolish, then I'll circle toward the ridge."
"You'll do nothing of the kind," was his flat answer.
"I will so!"
That stopped him. Turning on his side he looked back to where she lay; her eyes were snapping and a rose colour filled her cheeks. He had never seen her so aroused—or so striking. And presently he crept back, reaching for a cigarette and broadly smiling.
That definitely took the edge from her temper. "Well," she demanded in a fainter voice, "what are you laughing at? It's a Chessy cat laugh."
"You'd think we'd been married ten years the way we scrap. Lorena, don't you reckon I can take care of my own skin?"
"You'd been shot down in the river if I hadn't made him duck," said she.
"I'm thanking you for it now."
He said it so gravely and so humbly that her resentment instantly evaporated. "Well, it was a rash thing to do—but I liked it. Tom, I'll apologize."
"For what?"
"When I saw you first I thought you didn't have too much sand. It's been bothering me—up till now." She hesitated. "Seemed to me you rode around sort of doubting yourself. I hated to see it—truly I did."
That sharp and certain penetration. He flipped the cigarette through the air, considerably disturbed. "All right, Lorena. Now, I've got to pay that gentleman a social visit. You can't cross the river again until I clear the landscape a little. Do you think I want to pack a dead girl back to the Diamond W?"
She avoided his face, writing lines in the sandy ground. When she lifted her eyes it was with so troubled an expression in them that his amusement vanished. Her sturdy little shoulders rose, and her arm rested a moment on his wrist. "All right, Tom. I'll be good. But you watch carefully."
"Sure—sure."
He crawled across the rolling earth, scanning the rim of the hillocks for the mark of a hat brim or the gleam of a gun barrel. Nothing disturbed the profound stillness of the hot day; when he arrived at the first depression he slid into it for a brief moment and studied the flanking angles. The girl was prone on the ground, between the two horses, her chin cupped in her palms. But he noted that her revolver rested directly in front of her and even at the distance he clearly saw the pinched intentness of her oval face. Crawling up and down the contour he at last slid from her view, and at once commanded the whole sweep of ground as it marched to the bluffs edge. Nobody there. He relaxed his vigilance and circled the area until he found the gouged spots along the soil where the ambusher's boot heels left their prints; the fellow had swung from one point to another in his effort to get a fair shot, and then had fled toward the protecting ridges on the right. The deep set of the toe and the faint mark of the heel indicated the hurry he had been in. Probably he'd left a horse beyond that ridge and now was riding for distant shelter. Gillette thought about pursuing, but decided against it. That rough country was an effective cloak for the ambusher; the sun stood well up in the sky, and he had a long trip to town and back. No time right now for going on a hunt that might take him several days. He rose and waved his arm at Lorena. She jumped into the saddle and galloped toward him.
"He's skipped over there, then," said she, indicating the ridges. "Going to follow?"
He shook his head. "No time now. More important business on tap."
"Do you have an idea who it is?"
"Somebody trying to smoke me out, I reckon."
"San Saba?"
He thought not. "San Saba wouldn't stick to this country with a price on his head."
"Don't be too sure," she warned him. "That man is thoroughly bad. Snaky."
He grinned. "I'll wait right here till you cross the river. Friends again, ain't we?" And he extended his arm.
She took it, her hand slipping into his greater one and resting there a fleeting instant without pressure. The touch of it disturbed him, and he must have displayed it, for she drew away and turned to her horse. Five minutes later she rested on the opposite bank of the ford, her arm raised to him in salute; then the pony fled over the prairie, and Gillette walked to his own animal.
As for her, all the pent emotions of womanhood broke down the barriers she had so carefully preserved and gathered into one passionate cry. "Oh, if it were only so—if it only were! But it isn't! He doesn't see me that way! And I won't trick him! I hate that! He's got to see it with his own eyes—and he never will! Some dam' woman back East hurt him! I'd like to see her for a minute!"
She raced madly over the swelling earth, her teeth sunk into the nether lip.
After the girl had gone, Gillette swung away from the Nelson road and took the high ground along the ridge. He saw nothing to westward indicating the path of the ambusher. But, within five miles of town he found the dust rising off the main trail to the east and made out three horsemen and a buckboard travelling toward the ford. In town he went directly to the post office for his mail and then to the surveyor's. But before he reached that purveyor of gossip he came face to face with Barron Grist, the P.R.N. agent, and immediately that gentleman drew him aside.
"My proposition," Grist reminded him, "still holds."
"So
