She was galloping along at a good clip when suddenly her horse shied at something.
"Whoa, Buster," pacified Elaine.
But it was of no use. Buster still reared up.
"Why, what is the matter?" she asked. "What do you see?"
She looked down at the ground. There was a spot of blood in the dust.
Buster was one of those horses to whom the sight of blood is terrifying.
Elaine pulled up beside the road. There was a revolver lying in the grass. She dismounted and picked it up. No sooner had she looked at it than she discovered the initials "W. J." carved on the butt.
"Walter Jameson!" she exclaimed, realizing suddenly that it was mine.
"It's been fired, too!"
Her eye fell again on the blood spots. "Blood and—footprints—into the brush!" she gasped in horror, following the trail. "What could have happened to Walter?"
With the revolver, Elaine followed where the bushes were trampled down until she came to the place where I had been bound. There she spied some pieces of paper lying on the ground and picked them up.
She put them together. They were pieces of the envelope of the letter which we had decided to send to Washington.