CHAPTER VI.
HIPPY MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARS All except Nora Wingate obeyed the command to hold up their hands.
"I'll not put me hands up for the likes of you!" she retorted, her eyes snapping, as she deliberately got down from her pony.
"Don't do anything foolish," warned Grace Harlowe.
Unheeding the warning, Nora stepped over and picked up Hippy's hat, eyed the hole in it, the color flaming higher and higher in her face.

Nora then walked straight up to the mountaineer, apparently unconscious of the fact that his rifle was now pointed directly at her.
The mountaineer was nearer death at that moment than he knew, for two hands had slipped to two revolver butts resting respectively in the holsters of Grace Harlowe and Lieutenant Wingate.

What mad thing Nora had in mind they could not imagine, but they did not believe the fellow would dare to shoot her down in cold blood, for it must be plain to him that she was unarmed.
"Look what you did!" she demanded, holding up the hat that the mountaineer might see the bullet hole in it.

"You put a bullet through my husband's perfectly good hat.

Aren't you ashamed of yourself?
That hat cost him eight dollars, and if I thought you had eight dollars in the world, I'd make you pay for it.