gathered, gazing off over the rugged landscape and enjoying the
mountain scenery bathed in the early morning sunlight. The mountains, in
that softening light, lost their hideousness and were really beautiful
to look upon. Nora's eyes, slowly absorbing the scene before her,
suddenly paused in their roving and fixed their gaze on a point some
twenty yards below her. Nora was looking down on the crown of a
sombrero. Below it, the figure that the hat belonged to was invisible in
the dense growth of vine and bush.

"Faith, and what's that?" murmured Nora, half humorously. "I know. It's
that husband of mine wanting to give me a scare. Wait! I'll make the
rascal jump."

Nora Wingate groped for and found a small piece of rock, chuckling
softly to herself. Rising cautiously she aimed the rock to fall several
feet to one side of the man below her, then reaching her hand far back
she let fly, just as she had seen bombers do in France when practicing
bomb-throwing.

Nora stood shaking with silent laughter at the fright she was going to
give Hippy Wingate. To her horror, the rock, instead of landing to one
side of the man, dropped fairly on the top of his head. As the stone hit
him, the man uttered a grunt, but the Overland girl was too shocked to
utter a sound.

The fellow leaped to one side, threw a hand to his head and knocked off
his hat in his effort to find out what had hit him, then quickly looked
up.

Nora Wingate found herself gazing down, not into the face of Hippy, but
into the scowling, rage-contorted features of Lum Bangs. At that moment,
Nora, of her own volition, could not have moved to save her life, but
Lum speedily furnished the incentive for her to do so. Without an
instant's hesitation he fired his rifle from the hip. The bullet from it
cut the leaves not many inches from Nora's head.

"Hippy! Oh, Hippy!" she screamed and ran, bullets clipping the leaves
close by, which served to lend speed to her flying feet.

Nora, as she ran, kept on shouting for Hippy. He heard her faintly and
started at a run to meet her.

"They are shooting at me. Hurry! Run!" urged Nora as he neared her.

"Run? I guess not," retorted Hippy. "Where are they?"

"Up the mountain. There was only one, but there may be more." Nora
grabbed her husband's arm and both started at a brisk trot for the camp.
Reaching there, Nora hurriedly told her companions what had occurred.

"Lum Bangs!" exclaimed Miss Briggs. "What is he doing here? T