conscious, Mary was shaking her excitedly. “What is it?” she asked, sleepily. “Louise! There’s a fire somewhere! Listen!” Some one rushed quickly through the hall; others followed, knocking against the walls in the darkness. Then the awful, heart-clutching clang of a bell rang out—near, insistent, metallic. It was the meeting-house bell. There was no other in the town. The girls sprang to the floor. The thought had found swift lodgment in the mind of each that the hotel was on fire, and in that moment Louise thought of the poisoned meat that had once been served to some arch-enemies of the gang whose chief was now on trial for his liberty. So quickly does the brain work under stress of great crises, that, even before she had her shoes and stockings on, she found herself wondering who was the marked victim this time. Not Williston,—he was dead. Not Gordon,—he slept in his own room back of the office. Not Langford,—he was bunking with his friend in that same room. Jim Munson? Or was the Judge the proscribed one? He was not a corrupt judge. He could not be bought. It might be he. Mary had gone to the window. “Louise!” she gasped. “The court-house!” True. The cloudy sky was reddened above the poor little temple of justice where for days and weeks the tide of human interest of a big part of a big State—ay, a big part of all the northwest country, maybe—had been steadily setting in and had reached its culmination only yesterday, when a gray eyed, drooping-shouldered, firm-jawed young man had at last faced quietly in the bar of his court the defier of the cow country. To-night, it would dance its little measure, recite its few lines on its little stage of popularity before an audience frenzied with appreciation and interest; to-morrow, it would be a heap of ashes, its scene played out. “My note books!” cried Louise, in a flash of comprehension. She dressed hastily. Shirt-waist was too intricate, so she threw on a gay Japanese kimono; her jacket and walking skirt concealed the limitations of her attire. “What are you going to do?” asked Mary, also putting on clothes which were easy of adjustment. She had never gone to fires in the old days before she had come to South Dakota; but if Louise went—gentle, high-bred Louise—why, she would go too, that was all there was about it. She had constituted herself Louise’s guardian in this rough life that must be so alien to the Eastern girl. Louise had been very good to her. Louise’s startled cry about her note books carried little understanding to her. She was not used to court and its ways.