es thunder there in
the winter, but it is very mild."

With hands that trembled she picked the cat off the rail and started
toward the house. "I'll tell dad what you said," she told him, glancing
back over her shoulder. When she saw that he had turned his horse and
was frankly following her to the house, her heart jumped wildly into her
throat,--judging by the feel of it.

"I'm plumb out of matches. I wonder if you can let me have some," he
said, still speaking too carelessly to reassure her. "So you stuck it
out in Rock City all through that storm! That's more than what I'd want
to do."

She did not answer that, but once on the doorstep Lorraine turned and
faced him. Quite suddenly it came to her--the knowledge of why she did
not like this man. She stared at him, her eyes wide and bright.

"Your hat's brown!" she exclaimed unguardedly. "I--I saw a man with a
brown hat----"

He laughed suddenly. "If you stay around here long you'll see a good
many," he said, taking off his hat and turning it on his hand before
her. "This here hat I traded for yesterday. I had a gray one, but it
didn't suit me. Too narrow in the brim. Brown hats are getting to be the
style. If I can borrow half a dozen matches, Miss Hunter, I'll be
going."

Lorraine looked at him again doubtfully and went after the matches. He
thanked her, smiling down at her quizzically. "A man can get along
without lots of things, but he's plumb lost without matches. You've
maybe saved my life, Miss Hunter, if you only knew it."

She watched him as he rode away, opening the gate and letting himself
through without dismounting. He disappeared finally around a small spur
of the hill, and Lorraine found her knees trembling under her.

"Ket, you're an awful fool," she exclaimed fiercely. "Why did you let me
give myself away to that man? I--I believe he _was_ the man. And if I
really did see him, it wasn't my imagination at all. He saw me there,
perhaps. Ket, I'm scared! I'm not going to stay on this ranch all alone.
I'm going to saddle the family skeleton, and I'm going to ride till
dark. There's something queer about that man from Whisper. I'm afraid
of him."

After awhile, when she had finished her breakfast and was putting up a
lunch, Lorraine picked up the nameless gray cat and holding its head
between her slim fingers, looked at it steadily. "Ket, you're the
humanest thing I've seen since I left home," she said wistfully. "I
_hate_ a country where horrible