rner,
unlocked it and took out its entire contents of gold and silver. She had
reached the door when another idea seized her, and opening her desk she
collected her stamps to the last sheet, and hurriedly rolled them up
under her cape. Then with a glance at the clock, and a rapid survey
of the road from the platform, she slipped from it, and seemed to be
swallowed up in the waiting woods beyond.

CHAPTER II.

Once within the friendly shadows of the long belt of pines, Mrs. Baker
kept them until she had left the limited settlement of Laurel Run far to
the right, and came upon an open slope of Burnt Ridge, where she knew
Jo Simmons' mustang, Blue Lightning, would be quietly feeding. She had
often ridden him before, and when she had detached the fifty-foot reata
from his head-stall, he permitted her the further recognized familiarity
of twining her fingers in his bluish mane and climbing on his back. The
tool-shed of Burnt Ridge Tunnel, where Jo's saddle and bridle always
hung, was but a canter farther on. She reached it unperceived,
and--another trick of the old days--quickly extemporized a side-saddle
from Simmons' Mexican tree, with its high cantle and horn bow, and the
aid of a blanket. Then leaping to her seat, she rapidly threw off her
mantle, tied it by its sleeves around her waist, tucked it under
one knee, and let it fall over her horse's flanks. By this time Blue
Lightning was also struck with a flash of equine recollection and
pricked up his ears. Mrs. Baker uttered a little chirping cry which he
remembered, and the next moment they were both careering over the Ridge.

The trail that she had taken, though precipitate, difficult, and
dangerous in places, was a clear gain of two miles on the stage road.
There was less chance of her being followed or meeting any one. The
greater canyons were already in shadow; the pines on the farther ridges
were separating their masses, and showing individual silhouettes against
the sky, but the air was still warm, and the cool breath of night, as
she well knew it, had not yet begun to flow down the mountain. The lower
range of Burnt Ridge was still uneclipsed by the creeping shadow of
the mountain ahead of her. Without a watch, but with this familiar
and slowly changing dial spread out before her, she knew the time to a
minute. Heavy Tree Hill, a lesser height in the distance, was already
wiped out by that shadowy index finger--half past seven! The stage would
be at Hickor