galloped down the easy slope. The little episode had given the effect
of a three-cornered conversation. Yet the man had been as silent as
the animals.

In a moment he was lost among the hills, but still his whistling came
back, fainter and fainter, until it was merely a thrilling whisper
that dwelt in the air but came from no certain direction.

His course lay towards a road which looped whitely across the hills.
The road twisted over a low ridge where a house stood among a grove of
cottonwoods dense enough and tall enough to break the main force of
any wind. On the same road, a thousand yards closer to the rider of
the black stallion, was Morgan's place.




CHAPTER II


THE PANTHER

In the ranch house old Joseph Cumberland frowned on the floor as he
heard his daughter say: "It isn't right, Dad. I never noticed it
before I went away to school, but since I've come back I begin to feel
that it's shameful to treat Dan in this way."

Her eyes brightened and she shook her golden head for emphasis. Her
father watched her with a faintly quizzical smile and made no reply.
The dignity of ownership of many thousand cattle kept the old