valign="top" align="right" class="c13">XIX

The Mysterious Motor-Car   186 XX Catastrophe   197 XXI What Mary Thorne Found   208 XXII Nerve   219 XXIII Where the Wheel Tracks Led   230 XXIV The Secret of North Pasture   239 XXV The Trap   248 XXVI Sheriff Hardenberg Intervenes   256 XXVII An Hour Too Late   268 XXVIII Forebodings   276 XXIX Creeping Shadows   284 XXX Lynch Scores   291 XXXI Gone   301 XXXII Buck Rides   309 XXXIII Carried Away   319 XXXIV The Fight on the Ledge   332 XXXV The Dead Heart   339 XXXVI Two Trails Converge   345

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Westward the little three-car train chugged its way fussily across the brown prairie toward distant mountains which, in that clear atmosphere, loomed so deceptively near. Standing motionless beside the weather-beaten station shed, the solitary passenger watched it absently, brows drawn into a single dark line above the bridge of his straight nose. Tall, lean, with legs spread apart a bit and shoulders slightly bent, he made a striking figure against that background of brilliant sky and drenching, golden sunlight. For a brief space he did not stir. Then of a sudden, when the train had dwindled to the size of a child’s toy, he turned abruptly and drew a long, deep breath.

It was a curious transformation. A moment before his face—lined, brooding, somber, oddly pale for that country of universal tan—looked almost old. At least one would have felt it the face of a man who 4 had recently endured a great deal of mental or physical suffering. Now, as he turned with an unconscious straightening of broad shoulders and a characteristic uptilt of square, cleft chin, the lines smoothed away miraculously, a touch of red crept into his lean cheeks, an eager, boyish gleam of expectation flashed into the clear gray eyes that rested caressingly on the humdrum, sleepy picture before him.

Humdrum it was, in all conscience. A single street, wide enough, almost, for a plaza, paralleled the railroad tracks, the buildings, such as they were, all strung along the further side in an irregular line. One of these, ramshackle,