of mind.

"I've been nearly crazy, I think," he said to the girl with a wan smile of
self-accusation. "I want you to forget what I said."

"What happened at Manti?" she demanded, ignoring his words.

He laughed at the recollection, tucking his rifle under his arm,
preparatory to leaving. "I went after the record. I got it. There was a
fight. But I got away."

"But the fire!"

"I was forced to smash a lamp in the courthouse. The wick fell into the
oil, and I couldn't delay to--"

"Was anybody hurt--besides you?"

"Braman's dead." The girl gasped and shrank from him, and he saw that she
believed he had killed the banker, and he was about to deny the crime when
Agatha's voice shrilled through the doorway:

"There are some men coming, Rosalind!" And then, vindictively: "I presume
they are desperadoes--too!"

"Deputies!" said Trevison. The girl clasped her hands over her breast in
dismay, which changed to terror when she saw Trevison stiffen and leap
toward the door. She was afraid for him, horrified over this second
lawless deed, dumb with doubt and indecision--and she didn't want them to
catch him!

He opened the door, paused on the threshold and smiled at her with
straight, hard lips.

"Braman was--"

"Go!" she cried in a frenzy of anxiety; "go!"

He laughed mockingly, and looked at her intently. "I suppose I will never
understand women. You are my enemy, and yet you give me food and drink and
are eager to have me escape your accomplice. Don't you know that this
record will ruin him?"

"Go, go!" she panted.

"Well, you're a puzzle!" he said. She saw him leap into the saddle, and
she ran to the lamp, blew out the flame, and returned to the open door, in
which she stood for a long time, listening to rapid hoof beats that
gradually receded. Before they died out entirely there came the sound of
many others, growing in volume and drawing nearer, and she beat her hands
together, murmuring:

"Run, Nigger--run, run, run!"

* * * * *

She closed the door as the hoof beats sounded in the yard, locking it and
retreating to the foot of the stairs, where Agatha stood.

"What does it all mean?" asked the elder woman. She was trembling.

"Oh, I don't know," whispered the girl, gulping hard to keep her voice
from breaking. "It's something about Trevison's land. And I'm afraid,
Aunty, that there is something terribly wrong. Mr. Corrigan says it
belongs to him, and the