As the blue roan ceased to fight her, Hilda’s thoughts had a chance to clear a bit, she had breath and attention to admire him. She leaned forward and patted him on the neck—and the sweat fumed up around her hand like suds. A year—Uncle Hank had thought he might be fit for her in a year—and here she was riding him within three days! What was happening back there on the Three Sorrows? That outfit were rustlers. Uncle Hank thought so, or he’d never have sent her on such an errand as this. She couldn’t get away from the belief that the young fellow with them was Fayte Marchbanks. And the cattle belonged to Fayte’s father. Well—that didn’t make any difference—they were rustlers just the same. Nobody but a rustler would have been as careless as that man was about the count. People didn’t feel that way about their own cattle. That look in his eye, when he praised her and called her “little lady”—she wasn’t exactly sure where and how it offended her so much, yet she knew that it did offend. Rustler! That’s what he was. Far off on that open plain the three pines that stood above the spring began to show like tiny weeds. With her breath coming in gasps, scarce able to feel the saddle beneath her or the rein she clutched in her hands, she yet brought her heels sharply against Mose’s dripping sides, and he answered with a spurt. Taller and taller the pines loomed; finally, she could make out beneath them a hooded chuck-wagon, hobbled ponies, and men lying or sitting about. No need of the quirt now; Creeping Mose obeyed her hand or voice humbly. As she used both to encourage him, he gave a sort of convulsive cat-hop and, shaking his head, plunged forward at a jolting, uneven run, which, exhausted, as she was, came near to unseating her. She could hardly see the camp as she swept in to it, hardly hear the shouts of the men, who jumped up and ran toward her, one of them catching the bit, bringing the horse to a standstill, another lifting her down as she rolled from the saddle. She heard some one call: “Colonel Marchbanks—come here!” And then another voice, saying: “Whoa, Buck!” “Hold up, sister! Steady, steady, young lady! Had a runaway?” “Whoa, Buck—whoa!” roared the cowpuncher who had seized Creeping Mose, revolving with him, kicking up a great dust. “You old fool—don’t you know when you’re done?” Abruptly the horse halted, he dropped at once into exhaustion, a sweat-soaked miserable spectacle. The man who held Hilda called over his shoulder: “Tarpy, fetch a pan of water, quick!” and when the squat little cook hurried up with the basin, he dipped his handkerchief in it and laved Hilda’s face and hands. “Plucky young ’un,” he said softly to Tarpy. “She isn’t going to faint. Hey, you boys—Slim and Charley! Pull that bedding roll over here.”