hing cloud shadow seemed startlingly solid. The girl urged
her horse into a gallop, and Lowell rode silently at her side. The
shadow overtook them. Angry winds seemed to clutch at them from various
angles, but no rain came from the cloud mass overhead. When they rode
into the ranch yard, the sun was shining again. They dismounted near the
barn, and Wong took the white horse. Lowell and the girl walked through
the yard to the front gate, the agent leading his horse. As they passed
near the porch there came through the open door that same chilling,
sarcastic voice which stirred all the ire in Lowell's nature.

"Helen," the voice said, "that careless individual, Wong, must be
reprimanded. He has mislaid one of my choicest volumes. Perhaps it would
be better for you to attend to replacing the books on the shelves after
this."

Every word was intended to humiliate, yet the voice was moderately
pitched. There was even a slight drawl to it.

Lowell's face betrayed his anger as he glanced at the girl. He made a
gesture of impatience, but Helen motioned to him, in warning.

"Some day you're going to let me take you away from this," he said
grimly, looking at her with an intensity of devotion which brought the
red to her cheeks. "Meantime, thanks for taking me out on that magic
ridge. I'll never forget it."

"It will be better for you to forget everything," answered the girl.

Lowell was about to make a reply, when the voice came once more, cutting
like a whiplash in a renewal of the complaint concerning the lost book.
The girl turned, with a good-bye gesture, and ran indoors. Lowell led
his horse outside the yard and rode toward Talpers's place, determined
to have a few definite words with the trader.

When Lowell reached Talpers's, the usual knot of Indians was gathered on
the front porch, with the customary collection of cowpunchers and
ranchmen discussing matters inside the store.

"Bill ain't been here all the afternoon," said Talpers's clerk in answer
to Lowell's question. "He sat around here for a while after you left
this morning, and then he saddled up and took a pack-horse and hit off
toward the reservation, but I don't know where he went or when he'll be
back."

Lowell rode thoughtfully to the agency, trying in vain to bridge the gap
between Talpers's cryptic utterances bearing on the murder, and the not
less cryptic statements of Helen in the afternoon--an occupation which
kept him unprofitably employed unti