ould call for it,--yes, call for it, with fire and
flame perhaps, the trampling of hoofs, pistol shots--and--yet--

Yet!--he had TRUSTED her. Yes! trusted her when he knew a word from her
lips would have brought the whole district down on him! when the mere
exposure of that dagger would have identified and damned him! Trusted
her a second time, when she was within cry of her house! When he might
have taken her filly without her knowing it? And now she remembered
vaguely that the neighbors had said how strange it was that her father's
stock had not suffered as theirs had. HE had protected them--he who was
now a fugitive--and their men pursuing him! She rose suddenly with a
single stamp of her narrow foot, and as suddenly became cool and sane.
And then, quite her old self again, she lazily picked up the dagger and
restored it to its place in her bosom. That done, with her color back
and her eyes a little brighter, she deliberately went downstairs again,
stuck her little brown head into the sitting-room, said cheerfully,
"Still yawpin', you folks," and quietly passed out into the darkness.

She ran swiftly up to the ridge, impelled by the blind memory of having
met him there at night and the one vague thought to give him warning.
But it was dark and empty, with no sound but the rushing wind. And then
an idea seized her. If he were haunting the vicinity still, he might see
the fluttering of the clothes upon the line and believe she was there.
She stooped quickly, and in the merciful and exonerating darkness
stripped off her only white petticoat and pinned it on the line. It
flapped, fluttered, and streamed in the mountain wind. She lingered and
listened. But there came a sound she had not counted on,--the clattering
hoofs of not ONE, but many, horses on the lower road! She ran back to
the house to find its inmates already hastening towards the road for
news. She took that chance to slip in quietly, go to her room, whose
window commanded a view of the ridge, and crouching low behind it she
listened. She could hear the sound of voices, and the dull trampling of
heavy boots on the dusty path towards the barnyard on the other side of
the house--a pause, and then the return of the trampling boots, and the
final clattering of hoofs on the road again. Then there was a tap on her
door and her mother's querulous voice.

"Oh! yer there, are ye? Well--it's the best place fer a girl--with all
these man's doin's goin' on! They've got t