She was sure the rider of the buckskin was no Sunset puncher. Yet he seemed garbed in the usual chaps, sombrero, flannel shirt and gay neckerchief of the cowpuncher. "And there isn't another band of cattle nearer than Froghole," thought the girl, adjusting her body to the Rose pony's quickened gait. She did not know it, but she was quite as much an object of interest to the strange rider as he was to her. And it was worth while watching Helen Morrell ride a pony. The deep brown of her cheek was relieved by a glow of healthful red. Her thick plaits of hair were really sunburned; her thick eyebrows were startlingly light compared with her complexion. Her eyes were dark gray, with little golden lights playing in them; they seemed fairly to twinkle when she laughed. Her lips were as red as ripe sumac berries; her nose, straight, long, and generously moulded, was really her handsomest feature, for of course her hair covered her dainty ears more or less. From the rolling collar of her blouse her neck rose firm and solid--as strong-looking as a boy's. She was plump of body, with good shoulders, a well-developed arm, and her ornamented russet riding boots, with a tiny silver spur in each heel, covered very pretty and very small feet. Her hand, if plump, was small, too; but the gauntlets she wore made it seem larger and more mannish than it was. She rode as though she were a part of the pony. She had urged on the strawberry roan and now came out upon the open plateau at the top of the bluff just as the buckskin mounted to the same level from the other side. The rock called "the View" was nearer to the stranger than to herself. It overhung the very steepest drop of the eminence. Helen touched Rose with the spur, and the pony whisked her tail and shot across the uneven sward toward the big boulder where Helen and her father had so often stood to survey the rolling acres of Sunset Ranch. Whether the stranger on the buckskin thought her mount had bolted with her, Helen did not know. But she heard him cry out, saw him swing his hat, and the buckskin started on a hard gallop along the verge of the precipice toward the very goal for which the Rose pony was headed. "The foolish fellow! He'll be killed!" gasped Helen, in sudden fright. "That soil there crumbles like cheese! There! He's down!" She saw the buckskin's forefoot sink. The brute stumbled and rolled over--fortunately for the pony _away_ from the cliff's edge. But the buckskin's rider was hurled into the air. He sprawled forward like a frog diving and--without touching the ground--passed over the brink of the precipice and disappeared from Helen's startled gaze. CHAPTER II DUDLEY STONE The victim of the accident made no sound. No scream rose from the depths after he disappeared. The buckskin pony rolled over, scrambled to its feet, and cantered off across the plateau.