nute to get his breath back. He heard the muffled
pluckety-pluck of a horse galloping down the sandy trail, and he knew
that there went Luis on his bitter mission to San Bonito. His eyes turned
involuntarily toward Sunlight Basin. There twinkled still the light from
Helen May's window, though it was well past midnight. Starr wondered at
that, and hoped she was not sick. Then immediately his face grew
lowering. For between him and the clear, twinkling light of her window he
saw a faint glow that moved swiftly across the darkness; an automobile
running that way with dimmed headlights.

"Now what in thunder does that mean?" he asked himself uneasily. He had
not in the least expected that move. He had believed that the automobile
he had heard, which very likely had carried the murderer, would hurry
straight to town, or at least in that direction. But those dimmed lights,
and in that the machine surely betrayed a furtiveness in its flight,
seemed to be heading for Sunlight Basin, though it might merely be making
the big loop on its way to Malpais or beyond. He stared again at the
twinkling light of Helen May's lamp. What in the world was she doing up
at that hour of the night? "Oh, well, maybe she sleeps with a light
burning." He dismissed the unusual incident, and went on about his more
urgent business.

Rabbit greeted him with a subdued nicker of relief, telling plainly as a
horse can speak that he had been seriously considering foraging for his
supper and not waiting any longer for Starr. There he had stood for six
or seven hours, just where Starr had dismounted and dropped the reins. He
was a patient little horse, and he knew his business, but there is a
limit to patience, and Rabbit had almost reached it.

Starr led him up over the rocky ridge into the arroyo where the
automobile had been, and from there he rode down to the trail and back to
the Medina ranch. He watered Rabbit at the ditch, pulled off the saddle,
and turned him into the corral, throwing him an armful of secate from a
half-used stack. Then he went up to the house and sat on the edge of the
porch beside the senora, who was still weeping and murmuring yearning
endearments to the ears that could not hear.

He did not know how long he would have to wait, but he knew that Luis
would not spare his horse. He smoked, and studied the things which Luis
had let drop; every word of immense value to him now. Elfigo Apodaca he
knew slightly, and he wondered a littl