bit of sleeping late, so that she did
not know until noon that he was gone. Pete was worried, and garrulously
feared the worst. The worst, according to Pete Hamilton, was sudden
death of a hemorrhage.

Miss Georgie asserted unfeelingly that Saunders was more in danger of
dying from sheer laziness than of consumption, and she even went so far
as to hint cynically, that even his laziness was largely hypocritical.

"I don't believe there's a single honest thing about the fellow," she
said to Good Indian. "When he coughs, it sounds as if he just did it for
effect. When he lies in the shade asleep, I've seen him watching people
from under his lids. When he reads, his ears seem always pricked up to
hear everything that's going on, and he gives those nasty little
slanty looks at everybody within sight. I don't believe he's really
gone--because I can't imagine him being really anything. But I do
believe he's up to something mean and sneaky, and, since Peppajee has
taken this matter to heart, maybe he can find out something. I think you
ought to go and see him, anyway, Mr. Imsen."

So Good Indian had gone to the Indian camp, and had afterward ridden
along the rim of the bluff, because Sleeping Turtle had seen someone
walking through the sagebrush in that direction. From the rim-rock above
the ranch, Good Indian had heard the shooting, though the trees hid from
his sight what was taking place, and he had given over his search for
Saunders and made haste to reach home.

He might have gone straight down the bluff afoot, through a rift in
the rim-rock where it was possible to climb down into the fissure and
squeeze out through a narrow opening to the bowlder-piled bluff. But
that took almost as much time as he would consume in riding around, and
so he galloped back to the grade and went down at a pace to break his
neck and that of Keno as well if his horse stumbled.

He reached home in time to see Donny run across the road with the
shotgun, and the orchard in time to prevent a general rush upon Stanley
and his fellows--which was fortunate. He got them all out of the garden
and into the house by sheer determination and biting sarcasm, and bore
with surprising patience their angry upbraidings. He sat stoically
silent while they called him a coward and various other things which
were unpleasant in the extreme, and he even smiled when they finally
desisted and trailed off sullenly to bed.

But when they were gone he sat alone upon