Declining the pressing invitation of both Jennie and Cinnabar Joe to stay for dinner, Janet mounted and rode across the creek. "Well, I never!" exclaimed Jennie, as she watched her out of sight, "she acted like she's mad! An' here I thought them two would hit it off fine. Ain't that jest like women? I'm one myself, but--Gee, they're funny!" Out on the bench Janet spurred the bay mare into a run and headed straight for the bad lands. A jack-rabbit jumped from his bed almost under her horse's hoofs, and a half-dozen antelope raised their heads and gazed at her for a moment before scampering off, their white tails looking for all the world like great bunches of down bobbing over the prairie--but Janet saw none of these. In her mind's eye was the picture of a slenderly built cowboy who sat his horse close beside hers, whose gloved hand slipped from her sleeve and gripped her fingers in a strong firm clasp. His hat rested upon the edge of a bandage that was bound tightly about his head--a bandage bordered with tatting. His lips moved and he was speaking to her, "For God's sake, don't hinder--help!" His fine eyes, drawn with worry and pain, looked straight into hers--and in their depths she read--"Oh, I'm coming--Tex!" she cried aloud, "I must find him--I must! If he knows she's safe--maybe he will--will stop hunting for Purdy! Oh, if anything should--happen to him--now!" "Little fool of an Eastern girl!" she exploded, a few miles farther on. "If she did come out here and get lost and if he did find her, and if--she'd never make him happy, even if he did marry her! But that Mrs. Endicott--I like her." She pulled up abruptly upon the very edge of the bad lands and gazed out over the pink and black and purple waste. Her brow drew into a puzzled frown. "I wonder," she whispered, "I wonder if she _did_ know I was just crazy about her Texan?" And, with the question unanswered, she touched the bay mare with her spurs and headed her down a long black ridge that extended far into the bad lands. CHAPTER XXVII SOME SHOOTING