re is little call for the use of it here.
Perhaps you live in the midst of greater dangers than I?"

"I'm one of the new settlers over in the river bottom," she explained.
"I rode up to ask you how far I'd strayed from home."

"It's about seven miles across to the river, I should estimate," he told
her. "I graze up to the boundary of the reservation, and it's called
five miles from there."

"Thank you; I think I'll be going back then."

"Will you do me the favor to look at this before you go?" he asked,
drawing a folded paper from the inner pocket of his coat and handing it
to her.

It was a page from one of those so-called _Directories_ which small
grafters go about devising in small cities and out-on-the-edge
communities, in which the pictures of the leading citizens are printed
for a consideration. The page had been folded across the center; it was
broken and worn.

"You may see the person whose portrait is presented there," said he,
"and if you should see him, you would confer a favor by letting me
know."

"Why, I saw him yesterday!" she exclaimed in surprise. "It's Jerry
Boyle!"

The sheep-herder's eyes brightened. A glow came into his brown face.

"You do well to go armed where that wolf ranges!" said he. "You know
him--you saw him yesterday. Is he still there?"

"Why, I think he's camped somewhere along the river," she told him,
unable to read what lay behind the excitement in the man's manner.

He folded the paper and returned it to his pocket, his breath quick upon
his lips. Suddenly he laid hold of her bridle with one hand, and with
the other snatched the revolver from her low-swinging holster.

"Don't be alarmed," said he; "but I want to know. Tell me true--lean
over and whisper in my ear. Is he your friend?"

"No, no! Far from it!" she whispered, complying with his strange order
out of fear that his insanity, flaming as it was under the spur of some
half-broken memory, might lead him to take her life.

He gave her back the revolver and released the horse.

"Go," said he. "But don't warn him, as you value your own life! My
mission here is to kill that man!"

Perhaps it was a surge of unworthiness which swept her, lifting her
heart like hope. The best of us is unworthy at times; the best of us is
base. Selfishness is the festering root of more evil than gold. In that
flash it seemed to her that Providence had raised up an arm to save her.
She leaned over, her face bright with eagerness.