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Show pTlie Trey O' Hearts I A No)iied Veraion of tha Motion Picture n. t .1 . Product by th, Univ. ! RlTo -y By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE T Author tf'The Fortune Hunter." "The Bmu Bowl." "The Block Bog " fe. I nimtrmte. with Photo.r.ph. from th, p;rte pro.nctio. 1 SYNOPSIS. The trv of hearts Is th "death-slKn" tmploveil" by Seneea Trim- In the private pri-vate war of ven;eineo which, through the agency of his daughter, Judith, a womas q( violent passions like his own, he wukos against Alan Law, son of the man, now dead, who was innocently responsible for the accident which rendered Trine a helpless help-less cripple. Alan loves Rose, Judith's twin and double, but in all other respects her precise opposite. Judith promises her father to compass Alan's death, but under un-der dramatic circumstances he saves her life, and so. unwillingly, wins her love. Thereafter Judith Is by turns animated by the old hatred, the new love and jealousy of Rose. CHAPTER XXXVI. Detail. Across the plain purple shadows were sweeping, close-ranked, like some vast dark army invading the land, pouring on over the rampart of mountains moun-tains in the east. Within the rim of hills that ringed the plain like the chipped and broken flange of a titanic saucer, silence brooded and solitude held 6way dwarfing the town of Detail that occupied oc-cupied the approximate middle of the sagebrush waste, to proportions even less significant than might be inferred from the candor of its christening. A platform, a siding, a .water tank, a Wells-Fargo office and a telegraph and ticket office, backed by three rough frame buildings; that is Detail itemized item-ized completely. Shortly after nightfall the steel ribbons rib-bons of the Santa Fe began to hum. A headlight peered suspiciously round a shoulder of the eastern range, took heart of courage to find the plain still wrapped in peace, and trudged stolidly stolid-ly toward Detail, the engine whose eye it was pulling after it a string of freight cars, both flat and box. At Detail the train paused. Its crew alighted and engaged in animated ani-mated argument. Detail gathered that the excitement was due to the unac- boose; none seemed to have any notion no-tion as t how it could have broken loose; yet missing it conspicuously was. In the pause that followed, while a report was telegraphed to headquarters headquar-ters and instructions returned to proceed pro-ceed without delay, one of the trainmen train-men spied a boyish figure lurking in the open door of an empty box car. Cunningly boarding this car from the opposite side, the trainman caught the skulker unawares and booted him vaingloriously into the night. ' As the figure alighted and took to Its heels, losing itself in the darkness, it uttered a cry of pained surprise and protest which drew a wrinkle of astonishment as-tonishment between the brows of the trainman. "Sounded like a woman's voice," he mused; then dismissed the suggestion as obviously absurd. ; It was not. . . . Shortly after the freight train had gone on its way before, indeed, the glimmer of its rear lights had been lost among the western hills a second sec-ond headlight appeared in the east, swept swiftly across the plain and in turn stopped at Detail. The second bird-of-passage proved to be a locomotive drawing a single car a Pullman. Hardly had it run past the switch, however, when the brakeman dropped down, ran quickly back to the switch and threw it open. Promptly the train backed on to the siding. As the Pullman jolted across the frogs the brakeman, interposing him-elf him-elf between it and the tender, released re-leased the coupling. By the time that the Pullman had come to a full stop on the siding, the locomotive was swinging westward like a scared jackrabbit though no such railk-and-watery characterization of the traitor passed the lips of any one of the three men who presently appeared on the Pullman's platform and Bhook impotent fists in the direction direc-tion taken by the fugitive engine. When the last of these had run temporarily tem-porarily out of breath and blasphemy, a brief silence fell, punctuated by groans from each, and concluded by the sound of a voice calling from the Interior of the car a voice as strangely strange-ly sonorous of tone as it was curiously querulous of accent. The three men immediately ran back mto the car and presented themselves with countenances variously apologetic, apolo-getic, to one who occupied a corner of the drawing room: a man wrapped in steamer rug and a cloud of fury. Now when he had drained the muddy froth of profanity from his temper tem-per it left a clear and effervescent well of virulent humor:' the wrath of the valetudinarian began to vent itself upon the hapless heads of the trio who tood before him. While this was in process, the Person of boyish appearance, who had been keeping religiously aloof and inconspicuous in-conspicuous in the background of De-toil De-toil ever since that unhappy affair with the trai nman, stole quietly up to 'he rear of the stalled Pullman, 'limited aboard, and creeping down 'he aisle unceremoniously interrupted 'he conference Just as the invalid was frolistilng off a rude but honest opinion 1 i In. loirlWtual caliber of one of the three named Marrophat, who figured as his right-hand man and familiar genius. "Amen to that!" the boyish person ejaculated with candid fervor, lounging loung-ing gracelessly in the doorway, '"there's many a true word spoken in wrath, Mr. Marrophat. Father forgot only one thing your masterly way with a revolver. From what I've seen of that, this day, I'll go bail that the only safe place for a man you pull a gun on is right in front of the muzzle. There's something downright uncanny in the way you can hit anything but what you aim at!" "Judith!" exclaimed the invalid. "Where did you drop from?" "From that freight," Judith explained ex-plained carelessly, neglecting to elucidate eluci-date the exact fashion of her drop. "I judged you'd be along presently, and thought I'd like to learn th news. Well what luck?" Her father shrugged with his one movable shoulder. Mr. Marrophat grunted indignantly. The others shuffled shuf-fled uneasily and looked all ways but one at the girl in man's clothing. "None?" Judith interpreted. "You don't mean to tell me that after I had taken all that trouble cast the caboose ca-boose loose in the middle of that trestle at the risk of my life you didn't have the nerve to go through with the business!" "We went through with it all right," replied Marrophat defensively; "but as usual, they were too quick for us. They jumped out and dropped off the trestle before our engine hit the caboose. ca-boose. We smashed that to kindling wood but they got away just in time to miss the crash. - And by the time we had stopped and calmed down the engineer well, it was dark and no way of telling which way they had run." The girl started to speak, but merely drooDed limD hands at her sides and rolled her eyes helplessly. t "We do our best," Marrophat observed. ob-served. "We can't be blamed if something somehow always happens hap-pens to tip the others off." The girl swung to face him with blazing eyes. "Just what does that mean?" she demanded in a dangerous voice. Marrophat lifted his shoulders. "Nothing much," he allowed. "I am only thinking how strange it is that Mr. Law can't be caught by any sort of stratagem when you are on the job, Miss Judith!" The girl's hands were clenched into fists, white knuckles showing through the flesh. "You contemptible puppy!" she snapped. . . . But on this her voice failed; for her tyes traveled past the person of Mr. Marrophat to the doorway of the drawing draw-ing room and found it framing a stranger. "Excuse me, friends," he offered in a lazy, semi-humorous drawl. "It pains me considerable to butt in on this happy family gathering, but business is business, same as usual, and I got to ast you-all to please put up your hands!" "What do you want?" the. invalid demanded. de-manded. "Why," drawled the bandit, "nothing in particular only your cash. Shell out, if you please gents all and the nn " VTo run an a nnrpf-ia ti Vft glance down the figure which Judith's disguise revealed rather than concealed. con-cealed. "If you'll pardon my takin' notice," he amended. "Perhaps I wouldn't if the lady's clothes didn't fit her so all-fired quick!" "Keep a civil tongue in your head, my man!" Judith counseled, without any show of fear. At the same time her father's voice brought her to her senses. "Judith! Be quiet. Let me deal with this gentleman. I am sure we can come to come arrangement." "You bet your life," agreed the gentleman gen-tleman as the girl mutinously stepped back. "I know what I want, and you-all you-all know you got it: so the name of the said arrangement is just 'shell out.' " "One minute," the invalid interposed. inter-posed. "Don't misunderstand me: I guarantee you shall be amply satisfied. satis-fied. I give you my word the word of Seneca Trine." The eyes of the bandit widened. "No? Is that so? Seneca Trine, the railroad king? Sure's you're born you're him: I've seen your picture in the papere a dozen times. Well, now, it looks like I'd drawn a full house to this pair of deuces, don't it? You ought to be able to pay something handsome " "I'll pay you far more handsomely than you dream of if you'll do as I wish," Trine interrupted quickly. "Do me the service I wish and name your price: whatever it is, you shall iia. v6 it -" "Nothing could be fairer'n that!" the two-gun man admitted suspiciously suspicious-ly "But what's the number of this here service like you call it?" Listen to me." Trine bent his head forward and jabbed the air with an emphatic forefinger. "What's the life of a man worth in this neck of the woods?" o Kuch you got?" 'I'll pay you ten thousaud dollars ' for the life of Indian I will name." The eyes of t'ij bandit narrowed. "Hold on, my friend: is that what yon call my naming my own price?" J'Name It, then," said Trine. "Give me a thousand on account," said the other, "and a paper saying you'll Pay me nineteen-thousand more in exchange ex-change for it and one dead man, properly prop-erly identified as the one you want-signed want-signed by you and your man's as good as dead this minute, providing he's in riding distance of this here car." Trine waved his hand at his secretary. secre-tary. "Jimmy, find a thousand dollars for this gentleman. Make out the paper he indicates for the balance, and I'll sign it." "Ain't you powerful trustful, Mr. Trine? How do you know I'll do anything any-thing more'n pocket that thousand and fade delicately away." "My daughter and this gentleman, Mr. Marrophat, will accompany you." "Oh, that's the way of it, is it?" "Name?" interjected the secretary, writing busily with the top of his attache at-tache case for a desk. "Slade," said the bandit, "James Slade." Again Trine punctured the atmosphere at-mosphere with his Index finger. "The man whose life I want is named Alan Law. He is running away with my daughter, Rose, accompanied by a person per-son named Barcus, disguised as a Pullman Pull-man porter " "The three of them having recent' escaped from a train wreck up yonder on the trestle?" Hopi Jim interposed. "You've met them?" Judith demanded, demand-ed, whirling round. "About an hour ago, or maybe an hour and a half," Hopi Jim replied, "a good ways down the road. They stopped and ast where they could get put up fer the night. I kindly directed them on to Mesa, down in the Painted hills yonder." CHAPTER XXXVII. Fireplay. Contented with the promise of a thousand dollars advance on hiB contract, con-tract, providing he returned with horses within a stipulated time, Mr. Hopi James Slade drifted quietly away into the desert night. Well content; persuaded that the morrow's sun would never set upon a world tenanted by one Alan Law, that monomaniac, Seneca Trine, forgot his recent ill temper and set himself diplomatically diplo-matically to adjust the differences between be-tween his daughter, Judith, and his first lientena.nt. Marrnnhflt. It was no facile task: Marrophat could not be trusted to work with a single mind because of his infatuation for Judith; Judith could no more be trusted faithfully to serve out her vow to bring Alan Law to her father's feet, alive or dead, because O cruel Irony of Fate! she herself had fallen in love with that same man whose death she had pledged herself to compass. Only when, as now, half mad with jealousy, determined to see Alan dead rather than yield him to the woman he loved, her sister, might Judith be counted upon to serve her father in his lust for vengeance as he would be served and even so not without Marrophat Mar-rophat at her elbow to egg her on through her resentment of his surveillance. surveil-lance. Neither could be trusted, indeed, in-deed, to work alone to the desired consummation; con-summation; for Trine had secret reason rea-son to fear lest Marrophat might, given opportunity, connive at Alan's escape in order that he might marry Rose and so throw Judith back into his, Marrophat's, arms. Poor, deluded fool! Such was the private comment of Marrophat's master. For all that, it was the man and not his daughter, whom Trine designated to lead the expedition, cunningly counting on Judith's chagrin to work upon her passions and excite her to one last, mad, blind attempt that nhrnilH nrnvp sncceRRflll. Smiling his secret smile, Trine announced an-nounced his decision at the last moment, mo-ment, while Hopi Jim waited with his horses and an assistant one Texas for whose utter innocence of scruples Mr. Slade unhesitatingly vouched. Sullenly submissive,4' at least in outward out-ward seeming, Judith bowed to this decision, de-cision, marched out of the car, and suffered Marrophat to help her mount her horse. Now, deliberately, as the little cavalcade caval-cade rode through the moonlit desert night, the girl maneuvered her horse to the side of Hopi Jim, and then dropped back, permitting Marrophat to lead the way with Texa's. As deliberately she 6et herself to work upon the bandit's susceptibility to her charms. Within an hour she had him ready to do anything to win her smile. In that first rush of golden day a-thwart a-thwart the land, the party came quietly into the town of Mesa, riding slowly in order that the noise of their approach might not warn the fugitives, who Hopi asserted confidently would still be sound asleep in the accommodations accommoda-tions offered by the town's one hotel. It was to be termed a town only in courtesy, this Mesa: a straggling street of shacks, ramshackle relics of what had once been a promising community, com-munity, the half-way station between the railroad and the mining camps secreted in the fastnesses of the Painted Paint-ed hills campe now abandoned, their very, names almost faded out of the memory of mankind. Midway in this string of edifices the hotel stood a rough, unpainted, wooden wood-en edifice, mainly veranda and barroom bar-room as to its lower floor. Jealously Judith watched the windows win-dows of the second floor: and she alone of the four detected the face that showed for one brief instant well back In the shadows beyond one of the bedroom bed-room windows a face that glimmered momentarily with the pallor of a ghost'6 against the background of that obscurity, and then was gone. Her eyes alone, indeed, could have recognized the features of Alan Law in that fugitive glimpse. Two sentences exchanged between Hopi Jim and a blear-eyed fellow whom he roused from sodden slumbers behind the bar sealed their confidence with conviction: the three fugitives were in fact guests of the house, occupying oc-cupying two of the three rooms that composed its upper story. In the rush that followed up the narrow stairway, Judith led with such spirit that not even Marrophat suspected sus-pected her revolver was poised solely with intent to shoot from his hand his own revolver the instant he leveled it at a human target. Closed and locked doors confronted them; and their summons educed no response; while the first door, when broken in by a whole-souled kick, discovered dis-covered nothing more satisfactory than an empty room, its bed bearing the imprint of a woman's body, but that woman gone. From the one window, looking down the side of the house, Texas announced that the woman had not escaped by jumping out. So it seemed that the three must have had warning of their arrival, after all; and presumably were now herded together in the adjoining room, which looked out over the veranda roof, waiting in fear and trembling for the assault that must soon come and in fact immediately did. But it met with more stubborn resistance re-sistance than had been anticipated. The door had been barricaded from within re-enforced by furniture placed against it. Four minutes and the united efforts of four men (including (includ-ing the bleary loafer of the barroom) were required to overcome its inert resistance. re-sistance. But even when it was down, ihe room was found to be as empty as the first. Only the fingers of two hands gripping grip-ping the edge of the veranda roof showed the way the fugitives had flown; and these vanished instantly as the room was invaded. Followed a swift rush of hoofs down the dusty street, arid a chorus of blasphemy blas-phemy in the hotel hallway: for Judith Ju-dith had headed the concerted rush for the staircase and contrived to block it for a full half minute by pretending pre-tending to stumble and twist her ankle. In spite of that alleged Injury, she never limped, and wasn't a yard be- Caught the Skulker Unawares. hind the first who broke from the hotel to the open, nor yet appreciably behind him in vaulting to saddle. Well up the road a cloud of smoky dust half obscured the shapes of three who rode for their very lives. The pursuit was off in a twinkling and well bunched Marrophat's mount leading by a nose, Judith second, Hopi Jim and Texas but little in the rear. And in the first rush they seemed to gain; moment by moment they drew up on the flying cloud of dust. Judith heard an oath muttered beside be-side her and saw Marrophat jerking a revolver from its holster. The weapon swept up and to a level; but as the hammer fell, Judith's horse caromed heavily against the other, swinging it half a dozen feet aside, and deflecting the bullet hopelessly. The shock of collision was so great that Marrophat kept his seat with difficulty. dif-ficulty. He turned toward Judith a face livid with rage. Simultaneously, as if taking the shot as the signal for a fusillade, Judith saw Alan lean back over hie horse's rump and open fire. An instant later his companion, Barcus, Bar-cus, imitated his example. In immediate consequence, Texas dropped reins, slumped forward over the pommel, wabbled weakly in his saddle for a moment, then losing the stirrups, pitched headlong to the ground; while Hopi Jim's horse stopped short, precipitating his rider overhead, and dropped dead. CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Upper Trail. In the ten minutes' delay necessitated necessi-tated by this reverse, a number of more or less Innocent bystanders picked up the man Texas and carried him off to breathe his last beneath a roof; Hopi Jim picked himself op, brushed his person tolerably clear of clouds of dust and profanity, and departed de-parted in search of a mount to replace the horse that had been shot under him; and Judith sat her horse calmly, smiling sweet insolence into the exasperated exas-perated countenance of Marrophat. Incidentally the fugitives disappeared disap-peared round a bend in the road that led directly into the wild and barren heart of the Painted hills. In the brief interval that elapsed before be-fore his Return with Hopi Jim, liarro-phat liarro-phat contrived to persuade tl- bandit that Judith had been, at least indirectly, indi-rectly, responsible for the catastrophe, with the upshot that, temporarily blinded to her fascinations by the glitter glit-ter of nineteen thousand dollars in the near distance, Mr. Slade maintained his distance and a deaf ear to her blandishments. The only information as to their purpose that she was able to extract from either man, when the pursuing party turned aside from the main trail, some distance from Mesa, was that Hopi Jim knew a short cut through the range, via what he termed the upper trail, by which they hoped to be able w head the fugitives off before be-fore they could gain the desert on the far side of the hills. Only at long intervals did they draw rein to permit Hopi Jim to make re-connoissance re-connoissance of the lower trail that threaded the valley on the far side of the ridge. Toward noon he returned in haste from the last of these surveys scrambling recklessly down the mountain-side and throwing himself. upon his horse with the advice: "We've headed 'em can make it now. if we ride like all get-out!" For half an hour more they pushed on at the best speed to be obtained from their weary animals, at length drawing rein at a point where the trail crossed the ridge and widened out upon a long, broad ledge that overhung over-hung the valley of the lower trail, with a clear drop to the latter from the brink of a good two hundred feet. One hasty look back and down into the valley evoked a grunt of satisfaction satisfac-tion from Hopi Jim. "Just in time," he asseverated. "Here they come! Ten minutes more . . ." His smile answered Marrophat's with unspeakable cruel significance. "Texas will sleep better tonight when he knows how I've squared the deal for him!" the bandit declared. "What are you going to do?" Judith demanded, reining her horse in beside Marrophat as the latter dismounted. A gesture drew her attention to a huge boulder poised insecurely on the very lip of the chasm. "We're going to tip that over on your friends, Miss Judith!" Marrophat replied, with a smack of relish in his voice. "Simple neat efficient eh? What more can you ask?" She answered only with an irrepressible irrepress-ible gesture of horror. Marrophat's laugh followed her as she turned away. For some moments she strained her vision vainly, endeavoring to penetrate pene-trate the turbulent currents of superheated super-heated air that filled the valley. Then she made out indistinctly the faintly marked line of the lower trail; and immediately she caught a glimpse of three small figures, mounted, toiling painfully toward the point where death awaited them like a bolt from the blue. Hastily she glanced over-shoulder: Hopi Jim and Marrophat, ignoring her, were straining themselves against the boulder without budging it an inch, for all its apparent nicety of poise. For an instant a wild hope flashed through her mind, but it was immediately exorcised ex-orcised when Hopi Jim stepped back and uttered a few words of which only two "dynamite" and "fuse" reached her ears. Kneeling beside the boulder he dug busily for an instant, then lodged the stick to his satisfaction, attached the fuse, and breaking off, edged on hi6 belly to the edge of the cliff and looked down, carefully calculating the length of the fuse by the distance of the party down below from the spot where the rock must fall. But while he was so engaged and Marrophat aided him, all eager interest, inter-est, Judith was taking advantage of their disregard of her. Hurriedly unbuttoning her jacket, she whipped a playing card from her pocket, a trey o' hearts, and with the stub of a pencil scribbled three words on its face "Danger! Go back!" Then finding a small, flatfish bit of rock, she bound the card to it with a bit of string; and with one more backward glance to make sure she was not watched, approached the brink. Hopi Jim was meticulously shortening shorten-ing the fuse, Marrophat kneeling by his side. In the canyon below the three were within two minutes of the danger point. It was no trick at all to drop the stone so that it fell within a dozen feet of the leading horseman. She saw him rein in suddenly, dismount, dis-mount, cast a look aloft, then dismount and pick up the warning. As the others joined him, he detached de-tached the card and showed it to them. At the same time Hopi Jim and Marrophat Mar-rophat jumped up and ran back, each seizing and holding his horse by nose and bridle. Constrained to do likewise lest she lose her mount, Judith waited with a lightened heart . . . The explosion Bmote dull echoes from the flanks of the Painted hills, all drowsing in the noon-day hush: the boulder teetered reluctantly on the brink, then disappeared with a tearing tear-ing sound followed by a rush of earth and gravel; a wide gap appeared in the brink of the trail.1 Leaving Marrophat to hold the two frightened horses while the girl soothed her own, the bandit rushed to the edge, threw himself flat and swoft, bitterly, with an accent of grievance as he rose. From the cayon below a dull nols of galloping hoofs advertised too plainly plain-ly the failure of their attempt. And Hopi Jim turned back only to find Judith mounted, reining her horse in between him and Marrophat, and prepared to give emphasis to what she had ts say with an automatic pi6tol that nestled snugly in her rsrri. "One moment, Mr. Slade,' he suggested sug-gested evenly. "Just a moment before you break the sad news to Mr. Marrophat. Marro-phat. I've something to say that needs your attention likewise, your respect. It is this: I am parting company with you and Mr. Marrophat. I am riding on toward the west, by this trail. If . either of you care to follow me" the automatic flashed ominously in tha sun glare "it will be with full knowledge knowl-edge of the consequences. Mr. Marrophat Marro-phat will enlighten you if you have any doubt of my ability to take care of myself in such affairs as this. If you are well advised, you will turn back and report failure to my father." She nodded curtly and swung her horse round. "And what shall I tell your tather from you?" Marrophat demanded sharply. "What you please," the girl replied, flashing an impish smile over-shoulder. "But, 6ince when I part company with you, I part with him as well for all of me, you may tell him to go to the devil!" "Well," Mr. Marrophat admitted confidentially con-fidentially to Mr. Slade, "I'm damned!" "And that ain't all," Mr. Slade confided con-fided in Mr. Marrophat, whipping out his own revolver: "You're being held up, too. I'll take those guns of your'n, friend, and what else you've got about you that's of value, including your hoss and when you get back to old man Trine you can just tell him, with my best compliments, that I've quit tha job and lit out after that daughter of his'n. She's a heap sight more attractive attrac-tive than nineteen thousand dollars, and not half so hard to earn!" CHAPTER XXXIV. Burnt Fingers. Once she had lost touch with her fae ther's creatures, the girl drew rein and went on more slowly and cautiously. cau-tiously. Below her, in the valley, the lowet trail wound its facile way. From time to time she could discern upon soma naked stretch of its length a cloud of dust, or perhaps three mounted figures, fig-ures, scurrying madly on with fear of death snapping at their heel. It was within an hour of midnight, a night bell-clear and bittef cold on the heights, and bright with moorv light, when Alan's party made its last pause and camped to rest against tha dawn, unconscious of the fact that, a quarter of a mile above them, on tha upper trail, a lonely woman paused when they paused and made her own camp on the edge of a sharp declivity. The level shafts of the rising sun awakened her. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, yawned, stretched limbs stiff with the hardship of sleeping on unyielding, un-yielding, sun-baked earth and of a sudden started up, surprised by tha grating of footsteps on tha earth behind be-hind her. Before she could turn, however, sha was caught and wrapped in the arms of Hopi Jim. She mustered all her strength ana wits and will for one last struggle and in a frenzied moment managed to break his hold a trifle, enough to enable en-able her to 6natch at the pistol hanging hang-ing from her belt and present it at his head. But it exploded harmlessly, spending spend-ing its bullet on the blue of the morning morn-ing sky. The bandit caught her wrist in time, thrust it aside and subjected it to such cruel pressure and such say-aee say-aee wrenchinns that the nitnl rlrnnn4 from fingers numbed with pain. And now all hint of mercy left his eyes; remained only the glare of rage. " He put forth all his strength in turn, and Judith was as a child in h)s hands In half a minute he had her helpless, in as much time more her buck wa breaking across his knee, while ha bound her with loop after loop of bla rawhide lariat. Then, leaving her momentarily supine on the ground, Hopi Jim caught and unhobbled her horse, and without troubling to Baddle it, lifted the girl to its back, and placed her there, faca upward, catching her hands and feet, as they fell on either flank of the animal, ani-mal, with more loops of that unbreakable unbreak-able rawhide, and deftly placing tha master knot of the hitch that bound this human pack well beyond possibility possi-bility of her reach. She panted a prayer for mercy. Ha laughed in her face, bent and kissed her brutally, and stepped back laughing laugh-ing to admire his handiwork . . . Thus he stood for an instant be tween the horse and tbe edge of the declivity, a fair mark, stark against the sky, for one who stood In the valley val-ley below, holding his rifle with eager fingers, waiting for just such opportunity oppor-tunity with the same impatience with which he had waited for it ever sinca the noise of debris kicked over tha edge by the struggling man and woman had drawn his attention to what was going on above. Alan pressed the trigger and tha shot sounded clear in the morning stillness, Judith saw a look of aggrieved ag-grieved amazement cross the face of Hopi Jim Slade. Then he threw his hands out, clawed! blindly at the air, staggered, reeled against the horse's flank so heavily that it shied in fright, and abruptly frhot from sight over the edge of U14 b.ull, ( (TO UU CQ.XTL.NUED |
