the porch, brooding over
the day and all it had held of trouble and perplexity. Evadna appeared
tentatively in the open door, stood there for a minute or two waiting
for some overture upon his part, gave him a chilly good-night when she
realized he was not even thinking of her, and left him. So great was
his absorption that he let her go, and it never occurred to him that she
might possibly consider herself ill-used. He would have been distressed
if he could have known how she cried herself to sleep but, manlike, he
would also have been puzzled.

CHAPTER XVIII. A SHOT FROM THE RIM-ROCK

Good Indian was going to the stable to feed the horses next morning,
when something whined past him and spatted viciously against the side of
the chicken-house. Immediately afterward he thought he heard the sharp
crack which a rifle makes, but the wind was blowing strongly up the
valley, and he could not be sure.

He went over to the chicken-house, probed with his knife-blade into
the plank where was the splintered hole, and located a bullet. He was
turning it curiously in his fingers when another one plunked into the
boards, three feet to one side of him; this time he was sure of the
gun-sound, and he also saw a puff of blue smoke rise up on the rim-rock
above him. He marked the place instinctively with his eyes, and went on
to the stable, stepping rather more quickly than was his habit.

Inside, he sat down upon the oats-box, and meditated upon what he should
do. He could not even guess at his assailant, much less reach him. A
dozen men could be picked off by a rifle in the hands of one at the top,
while they were climbing that bluff.

Even if one succeeded in reaching the foot of the rim-rock, there was
a forty-foot wall of unscalable rock, with just the one narrow fissure
where it was possible to climb up to the level above, by using both
hands to cling to certain sharp projections while the feet sought a
niche here and there in the wall. Easy enough--if one were but left to
climb in peace, but absolutely suicidal if an enemy stood above.

He scowled through the little paneless window at what he could see of
the bluff, and thought of the mile-long grade to be climbed and the
rough stretch of lava rock, sage, and scattered bowlders to be gone over
before one could reach the place upon a horse. Whoever was up there, he
would have more than enough time to get completely away from the spot
before it would be possible to gain s