"What is the matter with you?" gasped Bess at last "You look like
Lot's wife, though you are too sweet ever to turn to salt, my dear.
Come on!"
Then, of a sudden, Bess heard the big cat spit! "My goodness!" she
shrieked, "what is that?"
Her cry was heard by Rhoda, at a distance. The Western girl knew
that something untoward was taking place. She ran for her pony and
leaped into the saddle.
"What is it?" she shouted to Bess, whom she could see from
horseback.
"Nan's found a red calf--and he makes the queerest noise," declared
the amazed Bess. "I'm afraid of that calf."
Walter ran to mount his pony, too. But Rhoda spurred directly
toward the spot where Bess stood. Being in the saddle, she was so
much higher than Nan's chum that she could see right over the brush
clump. Immediately she beheld Nan and the crouching lion.
"Come back, Nan!" she called quickly. "Stoop!"
She snatched the rifle from under her knee. It leaped to her
shoulder, and, standing up in her stirrups while her pony stood
quivering and snorting, for he had smelled the puma, the girl of
Rose Ranch took quick but unerring aim at the crouching,
slate-colored body on the boulder.
The beast was about to spring. Indeed, he did leap into the air.
But that was the reflex of his muscles after the bullet from
Rhoda's rifle struck him.
She had come up so that her sight had been most deadly--right
behind the fore shoulder.
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