he looked at him she darted
toward a rock about ten feet distant, no doubt intending to conceal
herself behind it.

Calumet watched her. When she gained the shelter of the rock she was
about to kneel in some fringing mesquite at its base when she heard
Calumet yell at her. She turned, hesitating in the act of kneeling,
and looked at Calumet. His face was ashen. His heavy pistol pointed
in her direction; it seemed that its muzzle menaced her. She
straightened, anger in her eyes, as the weapon crashed.

Her knees shook, she covered her face with her hands to shut out the
reeling world, for she thought that in his rage he was shooting at her.
But in the next instant she felt his arms around her; she was squeezed
until she thought her bones were being crushed, and in the same instant
she was lifted, swung clear of the ground and set suddenly down again.
She opened her eyes, her whole body trembling with wrath, to look at
Calumet, within a foot of her. But he was not looking at her; his gaze
was fixed with sardonic satisfaction upon a huge rattler which was
writhing in the throes of death at the base of the rock where she had
been about to kneel. Its head had been partly severed from its body
and while she looked Calumet's pistol roared again and its destruction
was completed.

She was suddenly faint; the world reeled again. But the sensation
passed quickly and she saw Calumet standing close to her, looking at
her with grim disapprobation. Apparently he had forgotten his danger
in his excitement over hers.

"I told you not to come here," he said.

But a startled light leaped into her eyes at the words. Calumet swung
around as he saw her rifle swing to her shoulder. He saw Taggart near
the edge of the wood, two hundred yards away, kneeling, his rifle
leveled at them. He yelled to Betty but she did not heed him.
Taggart's bullet sang over his head as the gun in Betty's hands
crashed. Taggart stood quickly erect, his rifle dropped from his hands
as he ran, staggering from side to side, to his horse. He mounted and
fled, his pony running desperately, accompanied by the music of a rifle
that suddenly began popping on the other side of Calumet--Dade's. But
the distance was great, the target elusive, and Dade's bullets sang
futilely.

They watched Taggart until he vanished, his pony running steadily along
a far level, and then Betty turned to see Calumet looking at her with a
twisted, puzzled smile.

"You p