Alice promised and as she passed through the door, leaned swiftly and kissed the girl squarely upon the lips.

“Good-bye,” she whispered.  “I won’t forget you,” and the next moment she stepped out to join the waiting half-breed, who with a glance of approval at her costume, took the bag from her hand and proceeded to secure it behind the cantle.  The girl mounted without assistance, and snubbing the lead-rope of the pack-horse about the horn of his saddle, the half-breed led off into the night.

Hour after hour they rode in silence, following a trail that wound in easy curves about the bases of hillocks and small buttes, and dipped and slanted down the precipitous sides of deep coulees where the horses’ feet splashed loudly in the shallow waters of fords.  As the moon dipped lower and lower, they rode past the darkened buildings of ranches nestled beside the creeks, and once they passed a band of sheep camped near the trail.  The moonlight showed a sea of grey, woolly backs, and on a near-by knoll stood a white-covered camp-wagon, with a tiny lantern burning at the end of the tongue.  A pair of hobbled horses left off snipping grass beside the trail and gazed with mild interest as the two passed, and beneath the wagon a dog barked.  At length, just as the moon sank from sight behind the long spur of Tiger Butte, the trail slanted into a wide coulee from the bottom of which sounded the tinkle of running water.

“Dis Snake Creek,” remarked the Indian; “better you git off now an’ stretch you leg.  Me, A’m mak’ de blanket on de groun’ an’ you ketch-um little sleep.  Mebbe-so dem com’ queek—­mebbe-so long tam’.”

Even as he talked the man spread a pair of new blankets beside the trail and walking a short distance away seated himself upon a rock and lighted a cigarette.

With muscles aching from the unaccustomed strain of hours in the saddle, Alice threw herself upon the blankets and pillowed her head on the slicker that the half-breed had folded for the purpose.  Almost immediately she fell asleep only to awake a few moments later with every bone in her body registering an aching protest at the unbearable hardness of her bed.  In vain she turned from one side to the other, in an effort to attain a comfortable position.  With nerves shrieking at each new attitude, all thought of sleep vanished and the girl’s brain raced madly over the events of the past few hours.  Yesterday she had sat upon the observation platform of the overland train and complained to Endicott of the humdrum conventionality of her existence!  Only yesterday—­and it seemed weeks ago.  The dizzy whirl of events that had snatched her from the beaten path and deposited her somewhere out upon the rim of the world had come upon her so suddenly and with such stupendous import that it beggared any attempt to forecast its outcome.  With a shudder she recalled the moment upon the verge of the bench when in a flash she had realized the true character