“Winged me,” smiled Hilliard.  “Well, I’m right pleased I won’t have to spend another night in your pen.”

“You’re entered for drinks.  The sheriff stands ’em.”  Here he bowed to Sheila, removing his hat.

“This lady”—­Hilliard performed the introduction—­“lost her horse on The Hill.  She’s aiming to stop at Rusty for to-night.”

The man who had spoken turned to his silent companion.  “Ride ahead, Shorty, why don’t you?” he said indignantly, “and tell Mrs. Lander there’s a lady that’ll want to sleep in Number Five.”

The other horseman, after a swift, searching look at Sheila, said “Sure,” in a very mild, almost cooing, voice and was off.  It looked to Sheila like a runaway.  But the men showed no concern.

They jogged companionably on their way.  Fifteen minutes later they crossed a bridge and pulled up before a picket fence and a gate.

They were in Rusty.

CHAPTER III

JOURNEY’S END

The social life of Rusty, already complicated by the necessity it was under to atone for a mistake, was almost unbearably discomposed by the arrival of a strange lady.  This was no light matter, be it understood.  Hidden Creek was not a resort for ladies:  and so signal an event as the appearance of a lady, a young lady, a pretty young lady, demanded considerable effort.  But Rusty had five minutes for preparation.  By the time Hilliard rode up to Lander’s gate a representative group of citizens had gathered there.  One contingent took charge of Hilliard—­married men, a little unwilling, and a few even more reluctant elders, and led him to the bowl of reparation which was to wash away all memory of his wrongs.  The others, far the larger group, escorted Sheila up the twelve feet of board walk to the porch of hospitality filled by the massive person of Mrs. Lander.  On that brief walk Sheila was fathered, brothered, grandfathered, husbanded, and befriended and on the porch, all in the person of Mrs. Lander, she was mothered, sistered, and grandmothered.  Up the stairs to Number Five she was “eased”—­there is no other word to express the process—­and down again she was eased to supper, where in a daze of fatigue she ate with surprising relish tough fried meat and large wet potatoes, a bowl of raw canned tomatoes and a huge piece of heavy-crusted preserved-peach pie.  She also drank, with no effect upon her drowsiness, an enormous thick cupful of strong coffee, slightly tempered by canned milk.  She sat at the foot of the long table, opposite Mr. Lander, a fat, sly-looking man whose eyes twinkled with a look of mysterious inner amusement, caused, probably, by astonishment at his own respectability.  He had behind him a career of unprecedented villainy, and that he should end here at Rusty as the solid and well-considered keeper of the roadhouse was, no doubt, a perpetual tickle to his consciousness.  Down either side