soliloquized, distressed. "Thar some chap has left that rabbit in misery
behind him, and here I've sent Joe Lorey down the mountain with a worse
hurt than it's got." She sighed. "It certain air a funny world!" she
said.

The subject of the wounded rabbit did not leave her mind until she had
clambered down the rocky path half-way to the small stream which she
sought below. She was ever ready with compassion for the suffering,
especially for dumb and helpless suffering animals, and, besides, the
episode had puzzled her. Who was there in those mountains who would
_wound_ a rabbit? Joe might have shot one, as might any other of the
mountain dwellers who chanced to take a sudden fancy for a rabbit stew
for supper, but Joe nor any of the other natives would have left it
wounded and in suffering behind him. Too sure their markmanship, too
careful their use of ammunition, for such a happening as that. Trained
in the logic of the woods, the presence of the little suffering animal
was a proof to her that strangers were about. The people of the
mountains regard all strangers with suspicion. Half-a-dozen times she
stopped to listen, half-a-dozen times she started on again without
having heard an alien sound. Once, from the far distance, she did catch
a faint metallic clinking, as of the striking of a hammer against rock,
but it occurred once only, and she finally attributed it to the
mysterious doings of the railroad people in the valley.

Down the path she sped, now, rapidly and eagerly. It was plain that
something which she planned to do when she reached her destination
filled her with anticipation of delight, for her red lips parted in a
smile of expectation as charming as a little child's, her breath came in
eager pantings not due wholly to the mere exertion of the rapid downward
climb. When, beyond a sudden turn in the rude trail, she suddenly saw