t Burt
to drive him out for the horses. Riggs followed him. Shady Jones did
nothing except grumble. Wilson, by common consent, always made the
sour-dough bread, and he was slow about it this morning. Anson and Moze
did the rest of the work, without alacrity. The girl did not appear.

"Is she dead?" growled Anson.

"No, she ain't," replied Wilson, looking up. "She's sleepin'. Let her
sleep. She'd shore be a sight better off if she was daid."

"A-huh! So would all of this hyar outfit," was Anson's response.

"Wal, Sna-ake, I shore reckon we'll all be thet there soon," drawled
Wilson, in his familiar cool and irritating tone that said so much more
than the content of the words.

Anson did not address the Texas member of his party again.

Burt rode bareback into camp, driving half the number of the horses;
Riggs followed shortly with several more. But three were missed, one
of them being Anson's favorite. He would not have budged without that
horse. During breakfast he growled about his lazy men, and after the
meal tried to urge them off. Riggs went unwillingly. Burt refused to go
at all.

"Nix. I footed them hills all I'm a-goin' to," he said. "An' from now on
I rustle my own hoss."

The leader glared his reception of this opposition. Perhaps his sense of
fairness actuated him once more, for he ordered Shady and Moze out to do
their share.

"Jim, you're the best tracker in this outfit. Suppose you go," suggested
Anson. "You allus used to be the first one off."

"Times has changed, Snake," was the imperturbable reply.

"Wal, won't you go?" demanded the leader, impatiently.

"I shore won't."

Wilson did not look or intimate in any way that he would not leave the
girl in camp with one or any or all of Anson's gang, but the truth was
as significant as if he had shouted it. The slow-thinking Moze gave
Wilson a sinister look.

"Boss, ain't it funny how a pretty wench--?" began Shady Jones,
sarcastically.

"Shut up, you fool!" broke in Anson. "Come on, I'll help rustle them
hosses."

After they had gone Burt took his rifle and strolled off into the
forest. Then the girl appeared. Her hair was down, her face pale, with
dark shadows. She asked for water to wash her face. Wilson pointed to
the brook, and as she walked slowly toward it he took a comb and a clean
scarf from his pack and carried them to her.

Upon her return to the camp-fire she looked very different with her hair
arranged and the red stains in h