2
Passion Conflict 130
XI. The Best Horse 142
XII. Smith Gets "Hunks" 156
XIII. Susie's Indian Blood 162
XIV. The Slayer of Mastodons 169
XV. Where a Man Gets a Thirst 190
XVI. Tinhorn Frank Smells Money 205
XVII. Susie Humbles Herself to Smith 213
XVIII. A Bad "Hombre" 228
XIX. When The Clouds Played Wolf 240
XX. The Love Medicine of the Sioux 248
XXI. The Murderer of White Antelope 272
XXII. A Mongolian Cupid 293
XXIII. In Their Own Way 303
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"That Look in Your Eyes--That Look as if You Hadn't Nothin' to Hide--is it True?" Frontispiece
"She's a Game Kid, All Right," Said Smith to Himself at the Top of the Hill. 22
It Meant Death--but it was Wet!--it was Water! 196
Smith Reached for the Trailing Rope and They Were Gone! 284
They Quirted Their Horses at Breakneck Speed In the Direction of the Bad Lands. 308
"ME--SMITH"
I
"ME--SMITH"
A man on a tired gray horse reined in where a dim cattle-trail dropped into a gulch, and looked behind him. Nothing was in sight. He half closed his eyes and searched the horizon. No, there was nothing--just the same old sand and sage-brush, hills, more sand and sage-brush, and then to the west and north the spur of the Rockies, whose jagged peaks were white with a fresh fall of snow. The wind was chill. He shivered, and looked to the eastward. For the last few hours he had felt snow in the air, and now he could see it in the dim, gray mist--still far off, but creeping toward him.
For the thousandth time, he wondered where he was. He knew vaguely that he was "over the line"--that Montana was behind him--but he was riding an unfamiliar range, and the peaks and hills which are the guide-boards of the West meant nothing to him. So far as he knew, he was the only human being within a hundred miles. His lips drew back in a half-grin and exposed a row of upper teeth unusually white and