A tiny hand went into a pocket, something that crinkled was shoved into the man's grasp, and while he stood there gasping, she leaped to the driver's seat, slammed the door, spun the starter until it whined, and with open cutout roaring again, was off and away, rocking down the mountain side, around a curve and out of sight--while Fairchild merely stood there, staring wonderingly at a ten-dollar bill! A noise from the rear, growing louder, and the amazed man turned to see a second machine, filled with men, careening toward him.

Fifty feet away the brakes creaked, and the big automobile came to a skidding, dust-throwing stop.

A sun-browned man in a Stetson hat, metal badge gleaming from beneath his coat, leaned forth.
"Which way did he go ?" "He ?" Robert Fairchild stared.
"Yeh.

Did n't a man just pass here in an automobile?
Where'd he go--straight on the main road or off on the circuit trail ?" "It--it was n't a man." "Not a man ?" The four occupants of the machine stared at him.

"Don't try to bull us that it was a woman." "Oh, no--no--of course not." Fairchild had found his senses.