uresque, nothing adventurous about it. It was
just straight, heart-breaking tragedy, that had its sordid side too.
Her dad was a querulous sick man absorbed by his sufferings and not yet
out of danger, if she read the doctor's face aright. Jim and Sorry had
taken orders all their life, and they would not be able to handle the
ranch work alone; yet how else would it be done? There was
Lone,--instinctively she turned her thoughts to him for comfort. Lone
would stay and help, and somehow it would be managed.

But to think that these things could be done without fear of
retribution. Jim and Sorry, Swan and Lone had not attempted to hide
their belief that the Sawtooth was responsible for Frank's death, yet
not one of them had hinted at the possibility of calling the sheriff,
or placing the blame where it belonged. They seemed browbeaten into
the belief that it would be useless to fight back. They seemed to look
upon the doings of the Sawtooth as an act of Providence, like being
struck by lightning or freezing to death, as men sometimes did in that
country.

To Lorraine that passive submission was the most intolerable part, the
one thing she could not, would not endure. Had she lived all of her
life on the Quirt, she probably would never have thought of fighting
back and would have accepted conditions just as her dad seemed to
accept them. But her mimic West had taught her that women sometimes
dared where the men had hesitated. It never occurred to her that she
should submit to the inevitable just because the men appeared to do so.

Wherefore it was a new Lorraine who rose at daybreak and silently
cooked breakfast for the men, learned from Jim that Sorry was not back
from Echo, and that Swan and Lone had gone down to the place where
Frank had been found. She poured Jim's coffee and went on her tiptoes
to see if her father still slept. She dreaded his awakening and the
moment when she must tell him about Frank, and she had an unreasonable
hope that the news might be kept from him until the doctor came again.

Brit was awake, and the look in his eyes frightened Lorraine so that
she stopped in the middle of the room, staring at him fascinated.

"Well," he said flatly, "who is it this time? Lone, or--Frank?"

"Why--who is what?" Lorraine parried awkwardly. "I don't---"

"Did they git Frank, las' night?" Brit's eyes seemed to bore into her
soul, searching pitilessly for the truth. "Don't lie to me, Raine--it