She protested. "Please don't say that! I want to consider this morning especially fine. I want it to bring us all good luck." Evidently Throop had kept his promise to Hanscom, for Helen said nothing of the battle of the night before, and with sudden flare of confidence the ranger said: "You're right. This is a wonderful morning, and I believe this trial is coming out right, but just to be prepared for anything that comes, I think I'd better get a lawyer to represent you. I don't feel able properly to defend your interests." "But you must be there," she quickly answered. "You are the one sure friend in all this land." His sensitive face flushed with pleasure, for beneath the frank expression of her friendship he perceived a deeper note than she had hitherto expressed, and yet he was less sure of her than ever, for in ways not easily defined by one as simple as he she had contrived to accent overnight the alien urban character of her training. She no longer even remotely suggested the hermit he had once supposed her to be. A gown of graceful lines, a different way of dressing her hair, had effected an almost miraculous change in her appearance. She became from moment to moment less of the mountaineer and more of the city dweller, and, realizing this, the trailer's admiration was tinged with something very like despair. He was not a dullard; he divined that these outer signs of change implied corresponding mental reversals. Her attitude toward the mountains, toward life, had altered. "She is turning away from my world back to the world from which she came," was his vaguely defined conclusion. Meanwhile the sheriff was saying: "Well, now, Carmody opens court in the town-hall at ten this morning, and, Hans, you are to be on hand early. I'll bring Miss McLaren up in the car about a quarter to ten and have her in the doctor's office, which is only a few doors away." "How is the Cuneo girl?" asked Hanscom. "She seems rested and fairly chipper, but I can see she's going to be a bad witness." Helen's face clouded. "Poor girl! I feel sorry for her." Mrs. Throop was less sympathetic. "She certainly has made a mess of it. I can't make out which of these raiders she ran away with." "She's going to defend them both," said Throop; "and she's going to deny everything. I'd like to work the third degree on her. I'd bet I'd find out what she was doing down at Watson's." Helen, who knew the value which her defenders placed on the correspondence between Rita's shoes and the footprint, was very grave as she said: "I hope she had no part in the murder. Mrs. Throop says she is hardly more than a child." "Well," warned the sheriff, "we're not the court. It's up to Carmody and his jury." They said no more about the trial, and Hanscom soon left the room with intent to find a lawyer who would be willing for a small fee to represent the Kauffmans--a quest in which he was unsuccessful.