Jerry Courtlandt lingered on the porch to watch her sister and Benson as they raced down the drive. Her eyebrows met in a thoughtful frown. What would her father say if Peg fell in love with Benson, with his poor-but-honest background? There was no "if" about Tommy. Cupid had set signal fires to burning in his eyes already. Benson pere had begun his business career as an errand boy; now he twinkled a large and somewhat dazzling planet in the select heaven of the multies. Well, Glamorgan the oil-king couldn't expect both his daughters to marry the man of his choice. She had done it and what had been her reward? Because she had views as to right and wrong and justice he refused to write to her. Evidently Peg didn't know the terms of Nicholas Fairfax's will or she wouldn't have been surprised at her lack of enthusiasm about the Alexandrite. Two thousand dollars! It seemed a more stupendous sum than twenty thousand would have seemed to her a year ago. Values were curious things. What had Steve thought? She was beginning to dread his eyes—they were so searching, so compelling.

If she wanted and needed money, she would earn it; other women had been doing it for years; she wouldn't accept it from Steve any other way. In spite of his prohibition she would work on the books for a while. She paused before she entered the house to draw a long breath and take a look at the glorious world about her. The sky spread like a cerulean canopy flecked with motionless white clouds. It seemed near. She felt more as though she were looking up at a vast, decorated dome than at the heavens. Almost she expected to see Dawn or any one of the symbolic head-liners in the mural world, come trailing her scanty draperies across the blue. The far-off mountains reared a patchwork of purple and blue and gold. The noisy stream was fringed with color. The fields rustled their content in the sunshine. On the road to the X Y Z rose a cloud of dust.

"Somebody coming!" she thought with a thrill of excitement. Then she laughed and looked down at the dog who stood in stately, aloof dignity beside her. "Goober, I'm getting to be like a prairie-dog who parks outside his hole to see the pass," she confided. She still watched the approaching riders. When she recognized in them Felice Denbigh and Bruce Greyson she regretted that she had lingered. It was too late to disappear now. The owner of the X Y Z had seen her and waved his hand. With a feeling of repugnance, which shocked her even as it swept her, Jerry went to the steps to greet the riders. Felice in her smart silvery linen looked as though she had been removed recently from tissue wrappings. Greyson's eyes met Jerry's. Was she mistaken that they were full of a wordless apology, she wondered, even as she greeted the two cordially.

"Doesn't this morning look as though it had just been returned from the dry-cleanser's?" she asked gayly. "Did you ever feel anything more spick and span than the air? Won't you come in?"

"Thanks, no." Felice Denbigh's answer was hurried. "Where is Steve? He invited me to inspect the Double O with him this morning. He was to come for me but I tired of the rÔle of patient Griselda and made Mr. Greyson bring me over. Not that I had to work hard to persuade him." Her light tone was tinged with malice as she administered one of those subtle female digs commonly imperceptible to the male intelligence. Jerry caught the obvious reply between her teeth and substituted:

"Steve was called to Lower Field. I—I doubt if he can ride with you this morning, Mrs. Denbigh."

If a glance could have accomplished it, Jerry would have been neatly and expeditiously skinned, then and there. Felice's voice had the edge of a hari-kari sword as she answered:

"Steve is the person to decide that. Which way to Lower Field, Mr. Greyson?" Her host's eyes flamed.

"If Mrs. Courtlandt thinks——"

"Oh, but Mrs. Courtlandt doesn't think," protested Jerry laughingly. "Do show Mrs. Denbigh the way to Lower Field, Bruce. I should be delighted to go myself but for a letter which must be ready for Sandy this morning. You will find——"

Felice Denbigh was off before she had finished her sentence. Greyson followed without a word. Jerry looked after the two with troubled eyes. Her thoughts were in a turmoil.

"What has happened to Bruce Greyson?" she thought anxiously. "His conversational output has shrunk till what he says seems a waste of breath, it amounts to so little. One would think he was under a spell. I wonder—I wonder if Steve did make a date with her?" she mused aloud as she crossed the court on her way to the office. JosÉ, busy among his flowers, swept off his hat with his single-tooth smile.

"Buenos dias, SeÑora. My roses bloom brighter as you pass, yes?" Benito, balancing on one claw on the rim of the fountain, shivered, blinked his yellow eyes and croaked hoarsely:

"Piffle!"

With a shocked exclamation JosÉ flung a chunk of loam at the parrot. It hit him squarely and knocked him backward into the shallow basin. With frightened squawks and much ruffling of feathers the bird regained his place on the basin's rim. For an instant he indulged in a what-hit-me blink, then with his gaudy plumage looking as though it had been electrified croaked angrily:

"I'll be d——!"

JosÉ swooped and muffled the final word beneath his coat. "You weel pardon, SeÑora? It is SeÑor Tommee that teaches Benito seence he come to the rancho. I teach heem when he ees so leetle to speak only good. Not till one year ago does he begin to talk like wild devil. SeÑora weel pardon? He ees all I have, he ees like my child."

Jerry accepted the brown man's apology as seriously as it was offered.

"Children are a great responsibility. You never can tell what they will do, can you, JosÉ?"

The office seemed a dull, uninteresting drab in contrast to the light and color of the world outside. Even the silent witnesses to the drama and lawlessness of the country, now guarded jealously by glass doors, failed to spur the girl's imagination. She streamed the curtain up at the window. A light haze of dust lingered above the road Greyson and Felice had taken. The music of the stream stole into the quiet room; down in the corral a horse whinnied intriguingly; the whole gleaming out-of-doors lured, the mountains beckoned.

Jerry resolutely barred heart and mind against temptation and attacked her letters. She worked with single-track intentness until Ming Soy announced luncheon. She looked up in surprise. Her work had burned up the hours. She interned the typewriter and closed her desk with a bang. She flexed her muscles in luxurious enjoyment of the sensation. What a relief to move, but it wasn't even a sliver of the relief she felt when she looked down at the sheaf of letters awaiting Steve's signature. How it would have pleased her father to know that she had resisted the temptation to be up and away on Patches, she thought wistfully. She could see him now, hear his gruff voice saying:

"Jerry, the more you dread the thing you have to do, the more you should hustle to get it behind you. Make that a rule of your life and you'll find you will have all the time you want and some left with which to speculate." He was a resplendent example of the working out of his own precept, his daughter thought. He was the busiest man she knew yet he always had an abundance of time for pleasure.

What should she do with her afternoon, she wondered, as she enjoyed the dainty luncheon Ming Soy served in a shady corner of the court. The air had lost the keenness of the morning. Birds flew to the rim of the basin, observed the girl at the table critically for an instant, then proceeded with the day's ablutions. They chattered, they splashed, they scolded, they preened and dressed their feathers in the sun. Butterflies darted in and out among the blossoms. There were none of the usual ranch sounds to break the stillness. Where were the men? Had Steve taken them all with him, she wondered. What were Peg and Tommy doing? Peg might see some real riding if she caught up with the outfit before they started off in pursuit of the missing cattle, but alas for buckskin fringes and——

Suddenly a plan sprang full panoplied, complete, from her brain. It was born of her what-shall-I-do-now mood. If necessity is the mother of invention, idleness is the father of adventure. She would array herself in one of the cowboy suits behind the glass doors, mount Patches and ride to the field behind the ranch-house, practise with a six-shooter until Peg came, then she'd dash toward her with her gun "spittin' death and damnation" into the air.

Her idea developed with magic-beanstalk rapidity, as all ideas will if they are dropped in fertile and well-cultivated soil. She laughed until she was breathless as she confronted herself in the mirror in her own room an hour later. Over her linen riding breeches she had drawn a pair of flapping black and white Angora chaps. Great Mexican rowels adorned her riding boots. A hectic yellow bandana, with red spots which gave the cheery effect of a geometrical nosebleed, almost covered her delicate blouse. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbows, at her hip swung a six-shooter of sinister portent. A heavy belt filled with cartridges sagged from her waist. She had slipped a silver filigree band above the black and gold cord of Steve's campaign hat.

In a little whirlwind of laughter she blew a kiss to the gleaming eyes of her vis-À-vis and lifted the saddle which she had purloined from the glass case. It was gay with silver. The tapideros were choice examples of Mexican craftsmanship. The head-stall of the bridle was fantastically trimmed with the metal. As Jerry passed through the living-room the huge rowels on her boots caught in the rug. She dropped the saddle with a crash and caught at the table to save herself from falling. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks pink when she had Patches saddled. She had brought him up from the corral herself before she dressed. He rolled his great eyes at her as she came out of the house. He pranced skittishly until she spoke. Then he quieted but he kept an appraising, suspicious eye on her. As the crowning touch of realism Jerry fastened a coil of rawhide rope beside the saddle fork.

It was with difficulty, punctuated by sotto voce exclamations, that the girl mounted. The chaps were heavy and perversely unadaptable. As she gathered up the reins Ming Soy appeared at the door. The little Oriental's eyes were globules of wonder. Jerry anticipated her.

"I am off to practise shooting in the field behind the house, Ming Soy. Don't be frightened if you hear shots. Watch the road for Miss Glamorgan and Mr. Benson. They ought to be here within an hour. The moment they appear in sight sound the gong at the back of the ranch-house. Do you understand?"

"All light. Ming Soy understan'. Slandy tlell Hopi Soy he see Clarey range-rider ketch Double O steers, other day. Said first he thought he doin' it for Hopi Soy's chief, so he doan't say nodin'. Now he wonder."

"Ming Soy! Are you sure?"

"Slandy tlell Hopi Soy he see um ketch um. Clarey range-rider drove steers over hill black of Blear Cleek ranch, Slandy tlell Hopi Soy."

"Ming Soy, don't let anyone know you told me that."

"All light, Ming Soy no tlell."

Jerry didn't know why she put that embargo on the Chinese woman's tongue. Perhaps a vague fear that a warning would get to the thief prompted it. The girl's mind was in a tumult as she raced Patches along the road. She didn't stop to unfasten the gate, she jumped it. As she entered the field which led to the stream she had quite forgotten the exhibition she had staged for Peg. She had suspected that range-rider of crookedness. Absorbed in thought she allowed Patches to race across the rustic bridge. The thud of his hoofs on the wood brought her back to the present. She pulled the horse down to a walk. Where was she going? To see what was on the other side of that ridge beyond which the range-rider had disappeared!

She followed the pack-trail cautiously. Bear Creek ranch-house in the glare of sunshine was outlined distinctly against the dark cliff behind it. Was it only this morning that she had come out of that door to find Steve waiting for her? She had the curious feeling of being in another decade. How were things going with the little mother, she wondered and—and where was the Man of Mystery?

She touched Patches lightly with the great spurs and raced along the trail toward the hill. It didn't seem possible that the man who had seemed so concerned when he came for her last night could be a rustler—but Sandy had seen him and the calves were missing. Her thoughts urged her on. She was the one person of authority within reach. She didn't know just what she intended to do, but she must do something. She only knew that a frenzied voice somewhere inside her head kept reiterating:

"He shan't get away with it! He shan't get away with it!"

Once as she climbed the hill she thought she saw a horse's head behind a tree. Her heart choked her with its pounding. The object proved to be nothing more intimidating than a black stump. When she reached the top of the slope she came upon a clump of dead trees standing spectral and white. She rode through them till she emerged in a clearing from which she could look down into the valley.

Below lay a trough of the hills. Heat waves pulsed above it. Over its surface, pockmarked with gopher holes, tumbleweed rolled and billowed and stacked against rocks and fallen timber in uncanny, shifting masses. Purple-gray and green sage-brush dotted it. Alkali whitened it in streaks. Beyond the hollow stretched a belt of upheaved ridges of brick-red sandstone. Between each ridge lay emerald green valleys with little streams cutting through at nearly right angles. Higher and higher rose the hills beyond till they loomed to mountains whose sides were clothed with forests that had never paid toll to the lumber-jack, whose snowy peaks, gold now in the sunshine, bared their jagged fangs to the soft blue of the sky. They lured and beckoned with their mysterious silences.

At the base of the slope on which Jerry stood was a circular hole perhaps three hundred feet in diameter and ten feet deep. At one side of it, near a pool, were the unmistakable traces of a camp. There were the ashes of a fire and beside them the mutilated body of a calf. The place gave an intangible sense of tragedy and terror.

Stepping as though the ground under her feet were a network of mines, any one of which might be jarred into disastrous activity by an inadvertent pressure of her foot, Jerry led Patches among the trees and fastened him. She stole back over the carpet of pine needles, her chaps flapping awkwardly at every step. She threw herself flat on the ground from which she could see the hollow and waited. From somewhere came the howl of a coyote; there seemed a million of them when the hills sent back the echo. High and motionless in the sky a great bird poised to reconnoiter then sailed and wheeled and dove. A gopher in front of his hole beat Jack-in-the-box at his disappearing trick.

Jerry shivered. Now she knew where she was, "Buzzard's Hollow." She hated the wailing coyote and she cared less, even less, for that horrible winged thing by the pool. Had the Bear Creek range-rider joined the campers? If she could only see the brand on that calf. But she couldn't; it would be madness to go down into the hollow. She must hurry back to the Double O and report. Slowman, the corral boss, would be there if no one else was. Someone should see that calf before the buzzards had obliterated all trace of the owner.

The girl sprang to her feet and ran to unloose Patches. Now that she had decided to go her courage was disappearing as rapidly as vapor in the sunshine. How terrifyingly empty of anything human the great spaces seemed. She saw a menace behind every bush, a lurking danger behind every tree. Apparently Patches' imagination was working overtime too. It was a nervous horse she mounted but, as she turned toward the trail which led to the Double O and safety, something drew her round. Perhaps it was a sound, perhaps the lazy blue sweep of the mountains hypnotized her. She guided Patches to the clearing from which she looked down into the hollow. She couldn't have explained why she did it; it might have been a morbid curiosity to see if the great bird was feasting on the carrion. Her horse showed increased nervousness with every step. He began to shake. Jerry slipped to the ground and laid her face against his soft nose.

"What is it, boy? We're going back——"

A howl, a hair-raising mixture of banshee-wail and wildcat scream, callioped behind them. Patches stood not upon the order of his going but went at once. Snorting with terror he jerked the bridle from the girl's hand and racketed down the hillside toward the hollow. For a moment Jerry was rigid with terror, then she gripped her stampeding senses.

She must think. She was alone with that yelling demon—she couldn't get home without her horse—her next move was to follow Patches—he would get over his fright and answer her call. The dangling six-shooter at her side gave her courage. If her silly masquerading as a cowboy had done nothing else, it had given her that.

She slipped and slid down the slope. She caught at shrubs and stumps to retard her too impetuous progress; they sampled the fringes of her black and white chaps as she went by. She stubbed her toe upon a piece of rock. The next instant it seemed to her excited fancy as though the hillside gave way and took her with it.

"Detour!" she chuckled hysterically as down, down, down she went with a mass of dirt and gravel. She shielded her face with one hand as with the other she made futile grabs at the ground. It seemed as though eons of time passed as she rolled down the hill. Steve's hat went bounding down ahead of her. "I wonder how many miles I've gone now?" she thought with a frightened laugh. Then, as suddenly as she had started she stopped against something big and weather-stained and unyielding.

She lay passive for a moment looking up in dazed surprise. She was lying beside a wooden shack. Strange that she had not seen it when she looked down into the hollow. It must have been directly under the bank from which she made her reconnaisance. She shut her eyes and stilled a cry as she felt a hot breath on her cheek. Had the wildcat—she set her teeth and looked up between cautiously parted lids—looked up into the brown eyes of Patches. The horse was reeking wet, but he had stopped trembling. His lips twitched against her cheek with a clumsy, quivering caress. With a sob of thanksgiving Jerry threw her arms about his neck and tried to rise. She fell back with a frightened laugh. From her waist down she was buried in earth.

She controlled a frantic desire to attack the gravel furiously and scooped it away with slow and telling precision. Patches waited patiently. Possibly he realized that having landed his mistress in the dilemma it was only a square deal that he stand by. Jerry's heart pounded as she scooped. What was on the other side of that wooden wall? The headquarters of Ranlett and his gang? Was the calf lying in the hollow one of those the range-rider had appropriated from the Double O?

The gravel half removed the girl flung her arms about the horse's neck and drew herself free. The black and white chaps remained partially covered in earth and sand. Jerry took account of the damages. There was a stinging, smarting scratch along one cheek, the sleeve of her blouse was torn from the shoulder, her hair was a mass on her shoulders. Nothing serious, she congratulated herself, as she tidied her hair, removed a jeweled bar-pin from under the flamboyant bandana, and fastened her sleeve in place with it. The scratch was the only real casualty. Now that she was here she wondered if she couldn't find the brand on that calf herself.

Cautiously she tied Patches to a stump. The click of his hoof against a rock sent her heart fluttering to her throat. She shrank against the house and held her breath. No sound came from within or from the hollow. She must have frightened off everything alive when she came crashing down the hill.

Reassured she picked up her hat which had landed near her and put it on. It was curious what courage the touch of it gave her. It was as though Steve had spoken. She could almost hear his "Steady, little girl, steady!" She tiptoed round to the front of the shack. The slanting sun shone on two dirty windows in sagging frames from which some of the panes had been broken. In one of the survivors a round hole radiating tiny cracks told a story without words. Desertion had laid its spell on the place. The cabin was roofed with dirt and hay. Its board sides were warped and weather-stained. The door in the middle sagged and swung uncannily in the light breeze. What lay behind it? Evidence that would convict Ranlett?

Her heart pounding out the measure of her racing blood Jerry laid her hand on the rusty iron handle of the door. Its hinges creaked dolorously as she swung it wide. The sound echoed curiously within the empty shack—but—was it an echo? The doubt sent a million little icy shivers pricking through Jerry's veins. Her heart winged to her throat. She swallowed it valiantly and put a hesitating foot across the threshold.

It took an instant for her eyes to adjust themselves to the dimness after the glare outside. Then the furnishings begun to take shape. A cracked stove, red with rust, stood against the wall opposite; there was a table with shreds of oilcloth hanging from it; a chair which had been fashioned from a packing-box leaned against the table in three-legged dejection; the door of a cupboard hung on one hinge displaying an array of crockery and tin, in all stages of dilapidation and rust. Across one end of the room was a built-in bunk. A ragged saddle-blanket trailed from the side of it.

What—what—was that! Had her imagination tricked her or had that dirty blanket stirred? Jerry clutched the door. Even as she stood there, too frightened to move, there came the muffled sound which she had thought was an echo. Her vague sense of tragedy merged into something tangible and threatening. Someone was under that blanket! Was it an injured man—or—or—was it a decoy?