glasses, while Helen May went to find a comfortable bit of shade.

"If you'll come over this way, Mr. Starr," she called abruptly, "I'll
give you a sandwich. It's hot everywhere to-day, but this is a little
better than out in the sun."

Starr took the glasses down from his eyes and let them dangle by their
cord while he walked over the nose of the ridge to where she was
waiting for him.

Half-way there, a streak of fire seemed to sear his arm near his
shoulder. Starr knew the feeling well enough. He staggered and went
down headlong in a clump of greasewood, and at the same instant the
report of a rifle came clearly from the high pinnacle at the head of
Sunlight Basin.

Helen May came running, her face white with horror, for she had seen
Starr fall just as the sound of the shot came to tell her why. She did
not cry out, but she rushed to where he lay half concealed in the bushes.
When she came near him, she stopped short. For Starr was lying on his
stomach with his head up and elbows in the sand, steadying the glasses to
his eyes that he might search that pinnacle.

"W-what made you fall down like that?" Helen May cried exasperatedly.
"I--I thought you were shot!"

"I am, to a certain extent," Starr told her unconcernedly. "Kneel down
here beside me and act scared, will you? And in a minute I want you to
climb on the pinto and ride around behind them rocks and wait for me.
Take Rabbit with you. Act like you was going for help, or was scared
and running away from a corpse. You get me? I'll crawl over there after
a little."

"W-why? Are you hurt so you can't walk?"

Helen May did not have to act; she was scared quite enough for
Starr's purpose.

"Oh, I could walk, but walking ain't healthy right now. Jump up now and
climb your horse like you was expecting to ride him down to a whisper. Go
on--beat it. And when you get outa sight of the pinnacle, stay outa
sight. Run!"

There were several questions which Helen May wanted to ask, but she only
gave him a hasty, imploring glance which Starr did not see at all, since
his eyes were focussed on the pinnacle. She ran to the pinto and scared
him so that he jumped away from her. Starr heard and glanced impatiently
back at her. He saw that she had managed to get the reins and was
mounting with all the haste and all the awkwardness he could possibly
expect of her, and he grinned and returned to his scrutiny of the peak.

Whatever he saw he kept to himself; but presently