"You're not the man, are you? I--I think he was taller than you. And his hat was brown. He's a brute--a _beast_! To shoot a man just riding along---- It rained," she added plaintively. "My bag is back there somewhere under a bush. I think I could find the bush--it was where a rabbit was sitting--but he's probably gone by this time. A rabbit," she told him impressively, "wouldn't sit out in the rain all night, would he? He'd get wet. And a rabbit would feel horrid when he was wet--such thick fur he never _would_ get dried out. Where do they go when it rains? They have holes in the ground, don't they?"
"Yes. Sure, they do. I'll _show_ you one, down the road here a little piece. Come on--it ain't far."
To see a rabbit hole in the ground, Lorraine consented to mount and ride while Lone walked beside her, agreeing with everything she said that needed agreement. When she had gone a few rods, however, she began to call him Charlie and to criticize the direction of the picture. They should not, she declared, mix murders and thunderstorms in the same scene. While the storm effect was perfectly _wonderful_, she thought it rather detracted from the killing. She did not believe in lumping big stuff together like that. Why not have the killing done by moonlight, and use the storm when the murderer was getting away, or something like that? And as for taking them out on location and making all those storm scenes without telling them in advance so that they could have dry clothes afterwards, she thought it a perfect outrage! If it were not for spoiling the picture, she would quit, she asserted indignantly. She thought the director had better go back to driving a laundry wagon, which was probably where he came from.
Lone agreed with her, even though he did not know what she was talking about. He walked as fast as he could, but even so he could not travel the six miles to the ranch very quickly. He could see that the girl was burning up with fever, and he could hear her voice growing husky,--could hear, too, the painful laboring of her breath. When she was not mumbling incoherent nonsense she was laughing hoarsely at the plight she was in, and after that she would hold both hands to her chest and moan in a way that made Lone grind his teeth.