"I know she's safe with you, Miss Holliday," she said as she tucked Isita into the wagon beside Harry. "You're a good girl and you've been a real friend to her--to me; and you can help her to grow up good. There, go! Don't drive past the station. He's liable to be round there. And hurry!" She led the way to the road, stared toward the town, listening for a moment, and then walked swiftly away without a backward glance. New and rude emotions surged through Harry as whipping up the horses, she drove quickly out from the town. Sympathy for Isita, sympathy for that stricken mother, and humbly grateful joy for herself mingled in almost painful force. It relieved her to put her arm round Isita and draw the frail body close against her own. "After all, they couldn't separate us, could they?" she said. "Looks not." Isita tried to answer cheerfully, but her voice broke into a sob. "It's so hard to give up mother. She could have stayed. It was them two men made a mess of things." "But why did they have to rush off so suddenly?" Harry asked. "Haven't they been doing pretty much the same, year after year?" "Oh, sure, ever since I can remember; but they never got caught before." "Caught? They seemed to be going off quite freely." "They wouldn't of been free long. Not--not now since you--you found your hides." "My hides!" Harry repeated slowly. "You think--they knew--who----" "You needn't mind saying it." Isita gave a hard, hurt laugh. "Not if they didn't mind doing it. Oh, how often I've prayed you'd come on them driving one of your steers down home or burying a hide in the pothole!" "But why did they skin them?" Harry asked. "I thought rustlers stole live stock and drove them out of the country." "They wasn't brave enough, even for that! It was much easier to butcher and haul them out at night to Shoshone. Nobody could trace it that way, without any hide or brand. That's why they didn't want the herd law; with all them cattle grazing in the hills, yours and Ludlum's and stray brands out of other herds, they could pick up one most every day; work a little bunch down our way and, when night come, shoot one. That's what Joe was doing when he was on your land. He seen you wasn't suspicious; your critters were the best of all, big and fat. That's why he killed your cows, too; so's he could steal their calves. Oh, they knew how to do it, all right! It was a regular business." She stopped abruptly; the hard note in her young voice was like an echo of those cruel days. Harry was silent. How simple it all was now; Joe's mysterious cut; Mrs. Biane's suspicion of strangers or even of friends; Joe's poaching; Isita's terror, and the never-explained stampeding of the herds that night.