ifting her to her feet. She
saw the horse lying with bloody head. Tall pines loomed all around.
Another rifle cracked. "Run!" hissed Colter, and he bounded off,
dragging her by the hand. Another yell pealed out. "Here we are,
Colter!". Again it was Queen's shrill voice. Ellen ran with all her
might, her heart in her throat, her sight failing to record more than a
blur of passing pines and a blank green wall of spruce. Then she lost
her balance, was falling, yet could not fall because of that steel grip
on her hand, and was dragged, and finally carried, into a dense shade.
She was blinded. The trees whirled and faded. Voices and shots
sounded far away. Then something black seemed to be wiped across her
feeling.

It turned to gray, to moving blankness, to dim, hazy objects, spectral
and tall, like blanketed trees, and when Ellen fully recovered
consciousness she was being carried through the forest.

"Wal, little one, that was a close shave for y'u," said Colter's hard
voice, growing clearer. "Reckon your keelin' over was natural enough."

He held her lightly in both arms, her head resting above his left
elbow. Ellen saw his face as a gray blur, then taking sharper outline,
until it stood out distinctly, pale and clammy, with eyes cold and
wonderful in their intense flare. As she gazed upward Colter turned
his head to look back through the woods, and his motion betrayed a
keen, wild vigilance. The veins of his lean, brown neck stood out like
whipcords. Two comrades were stalking beside him. Ellen heard their
stealthy steps, and she felt Colter sheer from one side or the other.
They were proceeding cautiously, fearful of the rear, but not wholly
trusting to the fore.

"Reckon we'd better go slow an' look before we leap," said one whose
voice Ellen recognized as Springer's.

"Shore. That open slope ain't to my likin', with our Nez Perce friend
prowlin' round," drawled Colter, as he set Ellen down on her feet.

Another of the rustlers laughed. "Say, can't he twinkle through the
forest? I had four shots at him. Harder to hit than a turkey runnin'
crossways."

This facetious speaker was the evil-visaged, sardonic Somers. He
carried two rifles and wore two belts of cartridges.

"Ellen, shore y'u ain't so daid white as y'u was," observed Colter, and
he chucked her under the chin with familiar hand. "Set down heah. I
don't want y'u stoppin' any bullets. An' there's no tellin'."

Ellen was glad to c