Helen May came running, her face white with horror, for she had seen Starr fall just as the sound of the shot came to tell her why.  She did not cry out, but she rushed to where he lay half concealed in the bushes.  When she came near him, she stopped short.  For Starr was lying on his stomach with his head up and elbows in the sand, steadying the glasses to his eyes that he might search that pinnacle.

“W-what made you fall down like that?” Helen May cried exasperatedly.  “I—­I thought you were shot!”

“I am, to a certain extent,” Starr told her unconcernedly.  “Kneel down here beside me and act scared, will you?  And in a minute I want you to climb on the pinto and ride around behind them rocks and wait for me.  Take Rabbit with you.  Act like you was going for help, or was scared and running away from a corpse.  You get me?  I’ll crawl over there after a little.”

“W-why?  Are you hurt so you can’t walk?”

Helen May did not have to act; she was scared quite enough for Starr’s purpose.

“Oh, I could walk, but walking ain’t healthy right now.  Jump up now and climb your horse like you was expecting to ride him down to a whisper.  Go on—­beat it.  And when you get outa sight of the pinnacle, stay outa sight.  Run!”

There were several questions which Helen May wanted to ask, but she only gave him a hasty, imploring glance which Starr did not see at all, since his eyes were focussed on the pinnacle.  She ran to the pinto and scared him so that he jumped away from her.  Starr heard and glanced impatiently back at her.  He saw that she had managed to get the reins and was mounting with all the haste and all the awkwardness he could possibly expect of her, and he grinned and returned to his scrutiny of the peak.

Whatever he saw he kept to himself; but presently he began to wriggle backward, keeping the greasewood clump, and afterwards certain rocks and little ridges, between himself and a view of the point he had fixed upon as the spot where the shooter had stood.

When he had rounded the first rock ledge he got up and looked for Helen May, and found her standing a couple of rods off, watching him anxiously.  He smiled reassuringly at her while he dusted his trousers with the flat of his hands.

“Fine and dandy,” he said.  “Whoever took a pot-shot at me thinks he got me first crack.  See?  Now listen, lady.  That maybe was some herder out gunning for coyotes, and maybe he was gunning for me.  I licked a herder that ranges over that way, and he maybe thought he’d play even.  But anyway, don’t say anything about it to anybody, will you.  I kinda—­”

“Why not?  If he shot at you, he wanted to kill you.  And that’s murder; he ought to be—­”