shaped like the half of a huge platter with a high rim of
bluff on three sides.

His first involuntary glance was towards the house,
and there was unacknowledged expectancy in his eyes.
But he did not see Jean, nor any sign that she had
returned. Instead, he saw her father just mounting in
haste at the corral. He saw him swing his quirt down
along the side of his horse and go tearing down the
trail, leaving the wire gate flat upon the ground behind
him,--which was against all precedent.

Lite quickened his own pace. He did not know why
big Aleck Douglas should be hitting that pace out of
the coulee, but since Aleck's pace was habitually
unhurried, the inference was plain enough that there was
some urgent need for haste. Lite let down the rails of
the barred gate from the meadow into the pasture,
mounted, and went galloping across the uneven sod.
His first anxious thought was for the girl. Had something
happened to her?

At the stable he looked and saw that Jean's saddle did
not hang on its accustomed peg inside the door, and he
breathed freer. She could not have returned, then. He
turned his own horse inside without taking off the saddle,
and looked around him puzzled. Nothing seemed
wrong about the place. The sorrel mare stood placidly
switching at the flies and suckling her gangling colt in
the shady corner of the corral, and the chickens were