ashed past, she
again had photographed on her brain the scene of the turbid tragedy in
which she was intervening.

At the foot of the butte the road circled and dipped into the coulee.
She braced herself for the shock, but, though the wheels skidded till
her heart was in her throat, the automobile, hanging on the balance of
disaster, swept round in safety.

Her horn screamed an instant warning to the trapped man. She could not
see him, and for an instant her heart sank with the fear that they
had killed him. But she saw then that they were still firing, and she
continued her honking invitation as the car leaped forward into the zone
of spitting bullets.

By this time she was recovering control of the motor, and she dared
not let her attention wander, but out of the corner of her eye she
appreciated the situation. Temporarily, out of sheer amaze at this
apparition from the blue, the guns ceased their sniping. She became
aware that a light curly head, crouched low in the sage-brush, was
moving rapidly to meet her at right angles, and in doing so was
approaching directly the line of fire. She could see him dodging to and
fro as he moved forward, for the rifles were again barking.

She was within two hundred yards of him, still going rapidly, but not
with the same headlong rush as before, when the curly head disappeared
in the sage-brush. It was up again presently, but she could see that the
man came limping, and so uncertainly that twice he pitched forward to
the ground. Incautiously one of his assailants ran forward with a shout
the second time his head went down. Crack! The unerring rifle rang out,
and the impetuous one dropped in his tracks.

As she approached, the young woman slowed without stopping, and as the
car swept past Curly Head flung himself in headlong. He picked himself
up from her feet, crept past her to the seat beyond, and almost
instantly whipped his rifle to his shoulder in prompt defiance of the
fire that was now converged on them.

Yet in a few moments the sound died away, for a voice midway in the
crescent had shouted an amazed discovery:

"By God, it's a woman!"

The car skimmed forward over the uneven ground toward the end of the
semicircle, and passed within fifty yards of the second man from the
end, the one she had picked out as the leader of the party. He was a
black, swarthy fellow in plain leather chaps and blue shirt. As they
passed he took a long, steady aim.

"Duck!" shouted th