Me Smith

swallowed him.
    So they turned their tired horses back, reaching the ranch long after sundown. Ralston was still unconvinced that it was not a case of mistaken identity, and, hoping against hope, he asked some one loafing about while he and Bear Chief unsaddled if McArthur had returned.
    “He’s been off prowlin’ all day, and ain’t in yet,” was the answer; and Bear Chief grunted at this confirmation of his accusation.
    The Indian woman was waiting in the doorway when they came up the path.
    “You see Susie?” There was uneasiness in her voice.
    It was an unheard-of thing for Susie not to return from her rides and visits before dark.
    “Not since morning,” Ralston replied. “Has any one gone to look for her? Is Smith here?”
    “Smith no come home for supper.”
    “There seems to have been a general exodus to-day,” Ralston observed. “Are you feeling worried about Susie?”
    “I no like. Yas, I feel worry for Susie.”
    It was the first evidence of maternal interest that Ralston ever had seen the stoical woman show.
    “If Ling will give me a bite to eat, I’ll saddle another horse and ride down below. She may be spending the night with some of her friends.”
    “She no do that without tell me,” declared the woman positively. “Susie no do that.”
    She brought the food from the kitchen herself, and padded uneasily from window to window while they ate.
    What was in the wind, Ralston asked himself, that Susie, McArthur, and Smith should disappear in this fashion on the same day? It was a singular coincidence. Like her mother, Ralston had no notion that Susie was stopping the night at any ranch or lodge below. He, too, shared the Indian woman’s misgivings.
    He had finished and was reaching for his hat when footsteps were heard on the hard-beaten dooryard. They were slow, lagging, unfamiliar to the listeners, who looked at each other inquiringly. Then the Indian woman threw open the door, and Susie, like the ghost of herself, staggered from the darkness outside into the light.
    No ordinary fatigue could make her look as she looked now. Every step showed complete and utter exhaustion. Her dishevelled hair was hanging in strands over her face, her eyes were dark-circled, she was streaked with dust and grime, and her thin shoulders drooped wearily.
    “Where you been, Susie?” her mother asked sharply.
    “Teacher said,” she made a pitiful attempt to laugh, to speak lightly—“Teacher said ridin’ horseback would keep you from gettin’ fat. I—I’ve been reducin’ my hips.”
    “Don’t you do dis no more!”
    “Don’t worry—I shan’t!” And as if her mother’s reproach was the last straw, Susie covered her face with the crook of her elbow and cried hysterically.
    Ralston was convinced that the day had held something out of the ordinary for Susie. He knew that it would take an extraordinary ride so completely to exhaust a girl who was all but born in the saddle. But it was evident from her reply that she did not mean to tell where she had been or what she had been doing.
    Although Ralston soon retired, he was awake long after his numerous room-mates were snoring in their bunks. There was much to be done on the morrow, yet he could not sleep. He was not able to rid himself of the thought that there was something peculiar in the absence of Smith just at this time, nor could he entirely abandon the belief that McArthur would yet come straggling in, with an explanation of the whole affair. He could not think of any that would be satisfactory, but an underlying faith in the little scientist’s honesty persisted.
    Toward morning he slept, and day was breaking when a step on the door-sill of the bunk-house awakened him. He raised himself slightly on his elbow and stared at McArthur, looming large in the gray dawn, with a skull carried carefully in both hands.
    “Ah, I’m glad to find you awake!” He tiptoed across the floor.
    His clothing was wrinkled with the damp, night air, and his face looked haggard in the cold light, but the fire of enthusiasm burned undimmed behind his spectacles.
    “Congratulate me!”
    “I do—what for?”
    “My dear sir, if I can prove to the satisfaction of scientific sceptics that this cranium is not pathological, I shall have bounded in a single day—night—bounded from comparative obscurity to the pinnacle of fame! Undoubtedly—beyond question—a race of giants existed in North America——”
    “Pardon me,” Ralston interrupted his husky