Janet McWhorter rose early upon the morning following her talk with the Texan. Dressing hurriedly, she blew out her candle and hastened to the door. Toward the east the coulee rim showed dimly against the first faint blush of dawn. She wondered if the Texan still slept and whether she ought not to waken him and ask him to breakfast. As she stood in the doorway, man and horse emerged from the stable. She withdrew into the blackness of the room and in the dim light of the unborn day watched him mount. She saw the big roan try to sink his head. Noted the ease with which the man foiled the attempt. Heard the sound of his voice as he spoke to the unruly horse as one would speak to a mischievous child. Then, horse and rider disappeared in the darkness of the valley. The girl stood there in the darkness until the sound of hoof-beats died away. There was a certain rugged grimness in the scene. It was like the moving finger of fate--this silent horseman riding away into the dawn. Her lips moved: "I wish you--luck!" she breathed, "even if--even if--" She stepped from the cabin and glanced up at the paling stars. "Oh, I know!" she exclaimed, bitterly, "I saw it in his eye when I mentioned the reward. It isn't the reward he wants--it's _her_!" Hastening to the woodpile, she gathered kindlings and returned to the house and prepared her father's breakfast. Neither by word or look did McWhorter refer to the conversation of the evening before. The meal concluded he betook himself to the lambing-camp. Left alone, Janet washed and put away the dishes, tidied up the cabin, fed her orphan lambs, and looked after the little "hospital band" of sheep. Then she pitched a forkful of hay into the corral for the bay mare and returned to the cabin. Picking up a magazine, she threw herself into a chair and vainly endeavoured to interest herself in its contents. Ten minutes later she flung the magazine onto the table and, hastening into her own room, dressed for a ride. Stepping to the wall she removed a six-gun and a belt of cartridges from a peg and buckled the belt about her waist. Drawing the gun from its holster, she examined it critically. Her thoughts were of Purdy, now, and she shuddered: "I must never be without this--after yesterday." She stepped to the door of the cabin and glanced about her. "He said the next time it will be his turn--well, we'll see." An empty tomato can lay on its side, its red label flapping in the breeze. Levelling the gun the girl fired and the tomato can went spinning over the short-cropped buffalo grass. And without stopping it kept on spinning as she continued to shoot, until with the last shot it came to rest, a ripped and battered thing a hundred feet away. "Maybe it will be his turn--and maybe not," she muttered grimly. "He's the one person in the world I could kill." She cleaned the gun, reloaded it, and walking to the corral, saddled the bay mare.