there, and his eyes gleamed with satisfaction when,
embedded in one of the logs that formed the wall, he found the bullet.

Five minutes later he and Hagar led Ruth out on the porch. The girl was
shaking and cringing, but trying hard to bear up under the recollection
of her terrible experience. She had looked, once, at Chavis, on the floor
of the cabin, when she had recovered, and her knees had sagged. But
Randerson had gone to her assistance. She had looked at him, too, in mute
agony of spirit, filled with a dull wonder over his presence, but gaining
nothing from his face, sternly sympathetic. Outside, in the brilliant
sunshine, a sense of time, place, and events came back to her, and for
the first time since her recovery she thought of Abe Catherson's note,
which Hagar had read.

"Oh," she said, looking at Randerson with luminous eyes, joy flashing in
them, "he didn't shoot you!"

"I reckon not, ma'am," he grinned. "I'm still able to keep on range
bossin' for the Flyin' W."

"Yes, yes!" she affirmed with a gulp of delight. And she leaned her head
a little toward him, so that it almost touched his arm. And he noted,
with a pulse of pleasure, that the grip of her hand on the arm tightened.

But her joy was brief; she had only put the tragedy out of her mind for
an instant. It returned, and her lips quavered.

"I killed Chavis, Randerson," she said, looking up at him with a pitiful
smile. "I have learned what it means to--to take--human life. I killed
him, Rex! I shot him down just as he was about to spring upon me! But I
had to do it--didn't I?" she pleaded. "I--I couldn't help it. I kept him
off as long as I could--and nobody came--and he looked so terrible--"

"I reckon you've got things mixed, ma'am." Randerson met her puzzled look
at him with a grave smile. "It was me, ma'am, killed him."

She drew a sharp breath, her cheeks suddenly flooded with color; she
shook Hagar's arm from around her waist, seized Randerson's shoulders,
gripping the sleeves of his shirt hard and staring at him, searching his
eyes with eager, anxious intensity.

"Don't lie to me, Randerson," she pleaded. "Oh," she went on, reddening
as she thought of another occasion when she had accused him, "I know you
wouldn't--I know you _never_ did! But I killed him; I know I did! For I
shot him, Randerson, just as he started to leap at me. And I shall never
forget the look of awful surprise and horror in his eyes! I shall never
get over it--I wi