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 turbed imagination generated. The raiders had disappeared in the hills, heading for the nearest camp, he believed, to gather reinforcements and come back. It would not be their way to give it up.

In case they came back, what should he do? Would it be wiser to jump his horse when he saw them coming, and leave it to them, or stand and fight as he had begun? There was no answer to it forthcoming at that moment. He thought he'd better look around and find his hat.

As he turned to go about this errand, so trivial in the grim business of that day, Rawlins saw somebody approaching, riding hard. Edith Stone. There was no doubt about it. He knew her manner of riding, and he knew the horse. He went to meet her, running in his desire to stop her before she came in sight of the dead man lying in that stretched, straining posture, his face against the ground.

Edith arrived in a flurry of dust, leaning eagerly as she came on, to pull up beside him panting as if she had run the five miles from the ranch on foot. She was pale and frightened; there was a fearful look in her eyes.

"Oh, they didn't, they didn't!" she gasped, catching her breath with open mouth, the sound of it like a sob.

"No," said Rawlins stupidly.

He was standing with the rifle under his arm, pale, and dazed-looking as if he had fallen from a great height to a marvelous preservation.

"I saw them up there—I saw them through the field-glasses!" she shuddered.