e wonder of them. But their
glassy shine made them terrible. Her lids lifted in a sudden stare.

"You're not the man, are you? I--I think he was taller than you. And his
hat was brown. He's a brute--a _beast_! To shoot a man just riding
along---- It rained," she added plaintively. "My bag is back there
somewhere under a bush. I think I could find the bush--it was where a
rabbit was sitting--but he's probably gone by this time. A rabbit," she
told him impressively, "wouldn't sit out in the rain all night, would
he? He'd get wet. And a rabbit would feel horrid when he was wet--such
thick fur he never _would_ get dried out. Where do they go when it
rains? They have holes in the ground, don't they?"

"Yes. Sure, they do. I'll _show_ you one, down the road here a little
piece. Come on--it ain't far."

To see a rabbit hole in the ground, Lorraine consented to mount and ride
while Lone walked beside her, agreeing with everything she said that
needed agreement. When she had gone a few rods, however, she began to
call him Charlie and to criticize the direction of the picture. They
should not, she declared, mix murders and thunderstorms in the same
scene. While the storm effect was perfectly _wonderful_, she thought it
rather detracted from the killing. She did not believe in lumping big
stuff together like that. Why not have the killing done by moonlight,
and use the storm when the murderer was getting away, or something like
that? And as for taking them out on location and making all those storm
scenes without telling them in advance so that they could have dry
clothes afterwards, she thought it a perfect outrage! If it were not for
spoiling the picture, she would quit, she asserted indignantly. She
thought the director had better go back to driving a laundry wagon,
which was probably where he came from.

Lone agreed with her, even though he did not know what she was talking
about. He walked as fast as he could, but even so he could not travel
the six miles to the ranch very quickly. He could see that the girl was
burning up with fever, and he could hear her voice growing husky,--could
hear, too, the painful laboring of her breath. When she was not mumbling
incoherent nonsense she was laughing hoarsely at the plight she was in,
and after that she would hold both hands to her chest and moan in a way
that made Lone grind his teeth.

When he lifted her off his horse at the foreman's cottage she was
whispering things no one co