silently,
majestically to receive her. From within the canyon, she watched, as she
rode, to see them slowly close again. The sight of the encircling peaks
and ridges, rising in solemn grandeur out of the darkness into the light
of the stars, comforted her. The night wind, drawing down the canyon, was
sweet and bracing with the odor of the hills. The roar of the tumbling
Clear Creek, filling the night with its deep-toned music, soothed and
calmed her troubled mind. Presently, she would be with her friends, and,
somehow, all would be well.

The girl had ridden half the distance, perhaps, from the canyon gates to
the Ranger Station when, above the roar of the mountain stream, her quick
ear caught the sound of an automobile, behind her. Looking back, she saw
the gleam of the lights, like two great eyes in the darkness. A Company
machine, going up to the Head-Work, she thought. Or, perhaps the Doctor,
to see some one of the mountain folk.

As the automobile drew nearer, she reined her horse out of the road, and
halted in the thick chaparral to let it pass. The blazing lights, as her
horse turned to face the approaching machine, blinded her. The animal
restive under the ordeal, demanded all her attention. She scarcely noticed
that the automobile had slowed down, when within a few feet of her, until
a man, suddenly, stood at her horse's head; his hand on the bridle-rein as
though to assist her. At the same instant, the machine moved past them,
and stopped; its engine still running.

Still with the thought of the Company men in her mind, the girl saw only
their usual courtesy. "Thank you," she said, "I can handle him very
nicely."

But the man--whom she had not had time to see, blinded as she had been by
the light, and who was now only dimly visible in the darkness--stepped
close to the horse's shoulder, as if to make himself more easily heard
above the noise of the machine, his hand still holding the bridle-rein.

"It is Miss Andres, is it not?" He spoke as though he was known to her;
and the girl--still thinking that it was one of the Company men, and
feeling that he expected her to recognize him--leaned forward to see his
face, as she answered.

Instantly, the stranger--standing close and taking advantage of the girl's
position as she stooped toward him from the saddle--caught her in his
powerful arms and lifted her to the ground. At the same moment, the man's
companion who, under cover of the darkness and the noise of