tself upon her
whitening lips.

"Coyotes?"

He nodded, saying, "I have been watching their tracks for the last
mile."

She threw her hands to her head with a despairing gesture. He moved
toward her, filled with the yearning to take her in his arms and
comfort her. But he remembered that she was to be married to Albert
Wellesly and his hands dropped to his sides. He turned to examine the
ground about the stone and saw in the sand many little holes and
scratches. He noticed, too, some pebbles in front of the coyote
tracks.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "The brave little man! He threw stones at the
coyotes and kept them off! He must have had a stick, too, for see
these little holes in the sand. He probably stood up and thrust the
stick toward them."

"Could he keep them off so that they would not attack him?"

"Yes, I think he could. As long as--as he kept moving they would only
follow him."

A little farther on they found many deep impressions of the child's
feet close together, as if he had been jumping, and after that the
coyote tracks disappeared.

"He must have jumped at them and shouted and thrust out his stick,"
said Mead, "and frightened them away. He might have done that after he
found he could drive them back. And this was probably after daybreak,
when they would be less likely to follow him. We can't be so very far
behind him now, for he would be tired and could not walk fast."

"Come, hurry! Let us go on!" urged Marguerite,

He looked at her doubtfully. Her face was drawn and white under her
sunbonnet, notwithstanding her long walk in the hot sun, and dark
rings circled her eyes.

"Have you strength to go farther? Hadn't you better wait here?"

"No, no! I can go on! Come, let's hurry!" and she moved forward.

"Then lean on my arm. That will help you some."

"No, thank you. I might keep you back. You go on and follow the trail
as fast as you can and I will come behind. Don't stop a minute for
me."

The trail left the arroyo and climbed the hill again and from its
summit they could see the crowd of people far toward the north
scattering out over the mesa and dotting the hills beyond the mountain
road. A banner of smoke lay low against the northern horizon, while
across the distance came the faint whistle of an approaching train. A
vague remembrance came into Marguerite's mind that there was to have
been trouble in the town, a battle and bloodshed, after the passing of
that train, and that she had b