dropped in his tracks.

As she approached, the young woman slowed without stopping, and
as the car swept past Curly Head flung himself in headlong. He
picked himself up from her feet, crept past her to the seat
beyond, and almost instantly whipped his rifle to his shoulder in
prompt defiance of the fire that was now converged on them.

Yet in a few moments the sound died away, for a voice midway in
the crescent had shouted an amazed discovery:

"By God, it's a woman!"

The car skimmed forward over the uneven ground toward the end of
the semicircle, and passed within fifty yards of the second man
from the end, the one she had picked out as the leader of the
party. He was a black, swarthy fellow in plain leather chaps and
blue shirt. As they passed he took a long, steady aim.

"Duck!" shouted the man beside her, and dragged her down on the
seat so that his body covered hers.

A puff of wind fanned the girl's cheek.

"Near thing," her companion said coolly. He looked back at the
swarthy man and laughed softly. "Some day you'll mebbe wish you
had sent your pills straighter, Mr. Judd Morgan."

Yet a few wheel-turns and they had dipped forward out of range
among the great land waves that seemed to stretch before them