Then for the first time in her life she fainted.

The other rider lounged forward, a hat in his hand that he had just picked up close to the fire.

“We seem to have stampeded part of this camping party.  I’ll just take a run up this hill and see if I can’t find the missing section and persuade it to stay a while.  I don’t reckon you need me hyer, do you?” he grinned, with a glance at Neill and his burden.

“All right.  You’ll find me here when you get back, Fraser,” the other answered.

Larry carried the girl to the water-hole and set her down beside it.  He sprinkled her face with water, and presently her lids trembled and fluttered open.  She lay there with her head on his arm and looked at him quite without surprise.

“How did you find me?”

“Mainly luck.  We followed your trail to where we found the rig.  After that it was guessing where the needle was in the haystack It just happened we were cutting across country to water when we heard a shot.”

“That must have been when he fired at me,” she said.

“My God!  Did he shoot at you?”

“Yes.  Where is he now?” She shuddered.

“Cutting over the hills with Steve after him.”

“Steve?”

“My friend, Lieutenant Fraser.  He is an officer in the ranger force.”

“Oh!” She relapsed into a momentary silence before she said:  “He isn’t my brother at all.  He is a murderer.”  She gave a sudden little moan of pain as memory pierced her of what he had said.  “He bragged to me that he had killed my brother.  He meant to kill me, I think.”

“Sho!  It doesn’t matter what the coyote meant.  It’s all over now.  You’re with friends.”

A warm smile lit his steel-blue eyes, softened the lines of his lean, hard face.  Never had shipwrecked mariner come to safer harbor than she.  She knew that this slim, sun-bronzed Westerner was a man’s man, that strength and nerve inhabited his sinewy frame.  He would fight for her because she was a woman as long as he could stand and see.

A touch of color washed back into her cheeks, a glow of courage into her heart.  “Yes, it’s all over.  The weary, weary hours—­ and the fear—­ and the pain—­ and the dreadful thirst—­ and worst of all, him!”

She began to cry softly, hiding her face in his coat-sleeve.

“I’m crying because—­ it’s all over.  I’m a little fool, just as—­ as you said I was.”

“I didn’t know you then,” he smiled.  “I’m right likely to make snap-shot judgments that are ’way off.”

“You knew me well enough to—­” She broke off in the middle, bathed in a flush of remembrance that brought her coppery head up from his arm instantly.

“Be careful.  You’re dizzy yet.”

“I’m all right now, thank you,” she answered, her embarrassed profile haughtily in the air.  “But I’m ravenous for something to eat.  It’s been twenty-four hours since I’ve had a bite.  That’s why I’m weepy and faint.  I should think you might make a snap-shot judgment that breakfast wouldn’t hurt me.”