Jean of the Lazy A

t she did not know what it was that awakened her, though her eyes were open and fixed upon the lighted square of the window. She knew that she was in her room at the Lazy A, but just at

to listen. They were footsteps,-the heavy, measured tread of some man. They were in the room that had been her father's bedroom, and at first the

at the sides, and the little drawers at the top,-the kind that old people call a "safe." She heard a drawer pulled out. Without giving any conscious thought

se, hunting for something. She felt again the tremor of fear that is the heritage of womanhood alone in the dark. She pulled the Navajo blanket up to her ears with the instinct of the woman to hide, because sh

anted to get up and see, and fasten it somehow; but she was afraid the man out there might hear her. As it was, she reasoned nervously with herself, he probably did not suspect that there was any one in the house. It was an empty house. And unless he had seen Pard in the closed stall.... She wondered if he had heard Pard there, and had inv

and see who was there. She was careful not to move, ex

her elbow and waited in grim desperation. If he forced that door open, if he came in, she c

must have made sure that it was fastened firmly upon the inside, and then he left it and went into what had been the living-ro

he kitchen door shut behind him. She knew that squeal of the bottom hinge, and she knew the final gasp and click that proved the latch was fastened. She heard him step off the porch to the path, she heard the soft crunch of his feet in the sandy gravel as he went away toward the stable. Very cautiously she got off the couch and crept to the window; and with her gun gripped tigh

in a wide curve to the rocky knoll, and there it lay moon-lighted and empty. She fixed her eyes upon that curve and waited. In a moment the horseman galloped out upon the curve, rounded it, and d

at theory anywhere. That particular horseman had come there deliberately, had given the house a deliberate search, and had left in haste when he had finished. Whether he had failed or succeeded in finding what he wanted, he had left. He had not searched the stables,

kept this room habitable, and visited the ranch often. That was no secret; it never had been a secret. No one save Lite Avery had ever been in it, so far as she knew,-unless she counted those chance trespasse

Rajah's ruby, no ransom of a king; these things Jean named over mentally, and chuckled at the idea of treasure-hunting at the Lazy A. It vas very romantic, very mysterious, she told herself. And she analyzed the sensation of little we

e and laughed at her fear, and planned

rself, and that would precipitate one of those arguments between them that never seemed to get them anywhere

over to the Bar Nothing, sound asleep in the bunk-house. As a self-appointed guardian, Jean considered Lite someth