[Illustration] Wyoming a Story of the Outdoor West By William MacLeod Raine CONTENTS CHAPTER I. A DESERT MEETING CHAPTER II. THE KING OF THE BIG HORN COUNTRY CHAPTER III. AN INVITATION GIVEN AND ACCEPTED CHAPTER IV. AT THE LAZY D RANCH CHAPTER V. THE DANCE AT FRASER’S CHAPTER VI. A PARTY CALL CHAPTER VII. THE MAN FROM THE SHOSHONE FASTNESSES CHAPTER VIII. IN THE LAZY D HOSPITAL CHAPTER IX. MISS DARLING ARRIVES CHAPTER X. A SHEPHERD OF THE DESERT CHAPTER XI. A RESCUE CHAPTER XII. MISTRESS AND MAID CHAPTER XIII. THE TWO COUSINS CHAPTER XIV. FOR THE WORLD’S CHAMPIONSHIP CHAPTER XV. JUDD MORGAN PASSES CHAPTER XVI. HUNTING BIG GAME CHAPTER XVII. RUN TO EARTH CHAPTER XVIII. PLAYING FOR TIME CHAPTER XIX. WEST POINT TO THE RESCUE CHAPTER XX. TWO CASES OF DISCIPLINE CHAPTER XXI. THE SIGNAL LIGHTS CHAPTER XXII. EXIT THE “KING” CHAPTER XXIII. JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS’ MEETING CHAPTER I. A DESERT MEETING An automobile shot out from a gash in the hills and slipped swiftly down to the butte. Here it came to a halt on the white, dusty road, while its occupant gazed with eager, unsated eyes on the great panorama that stretched before her. The earth rolled in waves like a mighty sea to the distant horizon line. From a wonderful blue sky poured down upon the land a bath of sunbeat. The air was like wine, pure and strong, and above the desert swam the rare, untempered light of Wyoming. Surely here was a peace primeval, a silence unbroken since the birth of creation. It was all new to her, and wonderfully exhilarating. The infinite roll of plain, the distant shining mountains, the multitudinous voices of the desert drowned in a sunlit sea of space—they were all details of the situation that ministered to a large serenity. And while she breathed deeply the satisfaction of it, an exploding rifle echo shattered the stillness. With excited sputtering came the prompt answer of a fusillade. She was new to the West; but some instinct stronger than reason told the girl that here was no playful puncher shooting up the scenery to ventilate his exuberance. Her imagination conceived something more deadly; a sinister picture of men pumping lead in a grim, close-lipped silence; a lusty plainsman, with murder in his heart, crumpling into a lifeless heap, while the thin smoke-spiral curled from his hot rifle. So the girl imagined the scene as she ran swiftly forward through the pines to the edge of the butte bluff whence she might look down upon the coulée that nestled against it. Nor had she greatly erred, for her first sweeping glance showed her the thing she had dreaded.