e milling herd, and the sense of security and well being that
replaced the terror in her heart from the moment she had called his
name. A sudden indescribable pain gripped her breast, as though icy
fingers reached up and slowly clutched her heart. With staring eyes
and breath coming heavily between parted lips, she rode toward the
thing on the ground. As she drew near, her horse stopped, sniffing
nervously. She attempted to urge him forward, but he quivered, shied
sidewise, and, snorting his fear, circled the sprawling object with
nostrils a-quiver.

Fighting a terrible dread, the girl forced her eyes to focus upon the
gruesome form, and the next instant she uttered a quick little cry of
relief. The man's hat had fallen off and lay at some distance from the
body. She could see a shock of thick black hair, and noticed that he
wore a cheap cotton shirt that had once been white. There were no
chaps. One leg of his blue overalls had rolled up and exposed six
inches of bare skin which gleamed whitely in the moonlight above the
top of his shoe. The sight sickened, disgusted her, and whirling her
horse she dashed southward along the trail forgetting for the moment
the Samuelsons, the doctor, and everything else in a wild desire to
put distance between herself and that awful thing on the ground.

Not until her horse's hoofs rang upon the hard rock of the canyon
floor, did Patty slacken her pace. Thompson's was only a few miles
farther on. It was dark in the high walled canyon and she slowed her
horse to a walk. He stopped to drink in the shallow creek and the girl
glanced over the back trail. Where was he now! Thundering along with
the recaptured horse herd, or following the thieves in a mad flight
through the devious fastnesses of the mountains. Was it possible that
even at this moment he was lying upon the yellow-brown grass, or among
the broken rock fragments of some coulee, twisted, and shapeless, and
still--like that other who lay repulsive and ugly, with his bare leg
shining white in the moonlight? She shuddered. "No, no, no!" she cried
aloud, "they can't kill him. They're cowards--and he is brave!" Her
voice rang hollow and thin in the rocky chasm, and she started at the
sound of it. Her horse moved on, tongueing the bit contentedly. "They
were right, and I was wrong," she muttered. "And--and, I'm _glad_."

The canyon was left behind and before her the trail wound among the
foothills that rolled away to the open bench.