tell them."

"Oh, I shall of course!" Miss Georgie chose to be very sarcastic. "I
think I shall wire the information to the sheriff. Don't come with
me--and leave tracks all over the country. Keep on the lava rock.
Haven't you got any sense at all?"

"You made tracks yourself, madam, and you've left a fine lot of
incriminating evidence on that bush. I'll have to waste an hour picking
off the hair, so they won't accuse you of shooting Saunders." Good
Indian spoke lightly, but they both stopped, nevertheless, and eyed the
offending bush anxiously.

"You haven't time," Miss Georgie decided. "I can easily get around
that, if it's put up to me. You go on back. Really, you must!" her eyes
implored him.

"Oh, vey-ree well. We haven't met this morning. Good-by,
Squaw-talk-far-off. I'll see you later, perhaps."

Miss Georgie still had that freight heavy on her conscience, but she
stood and watched him stoop under an overhanging branch and turn his
head to smile reassuringly back at her; then, with a pungent stirring
of sage odors, the bushes closed in behind him, and it was as if he had
never been there at all. Whereupon Miss Georgie once more gathered her
skirts together and ran to the trail, and down that to the station.

She met a group of squaws, who eyed her curiously, but she was looking
once more at her watch, and paid no attention, although they stood
huddled in the trail staring after her. She remembered that she had left
the office unlocked and she rushed in, and sank panting into the chair
before her telegraph table just as the smoke of the fast freight swirled
around the nose of the low, sage-covered hill to the west.

CHAPTER XXII. A BIT OF PAPER

Good Indian came out upon the rim-rock, looked down upon the ranch
beneath him, and knew, by various little movements about the place, that
breakfast was not yet ready. Gene was carrying two pails of milk to the
house, and Wally and Jack were watering the horses that had been stabled
overnight. He was on the point of shouting down to them when his arm
was caught tightly from behind. He wheeled about and confronted Rachel.
Clothed all in dull gray she was, like a savage young Quakeress. Even
the red ribbons were gone from her hair, which was covered by the gray
blanket wrapped tightly around her slim body. She drew him back from the
rim of the bluff.

"You no shout," she murmured gravely. "No lettum see you here. You
go quick. Ketchum you cayuse, go to ranch.