Shandon looked at him blankly. Kinsell smiled and said abruptly,

"He gave his name as Wayne Shandon. How does that strike you? It all happened while you were going East with your brother's body; I believe that it occurred while your train was being held up a few minutes in Reno."

Shandon's bewilderment seemed to please Kinsell. He chuckled softly, and then, his face growing thoughtful again, he went on.

"You'll remember that the train is scheduled to stop for fifteen minutes in Reno? Well, the man made his deposit, and ten minutes later he came back, said that his plans had changed, that he was going to take the train with a friend he had seen on board, and asked to have his money back. It was given to him, at his request, in twenty-five bank notes of the thousand dollar denomination. He signed for them, writing your name, excusing an almost illegible signature by the need of haste and by a finger tied up as though it were badly hurt. So much for what the cashier of the Merchants' and Citizens' Bank of Reno knows about it."

"It was Hume?"

"From evidence so far given it might have been Hume or you! All right. The man with the big roll of bills went out with the train. He might have gone on to New York; he might have dropped off at Sparks and taken the next train back in half an hour. He might have got back to Sacramento the next morning. We find the rather interesting fact that in Sacramento a man, giving his name as Arnold Wentworth paid to Wells Fargo and Company the sum of twenty thousand dollars in bills of a thousand dollars each for an order payable to Helga Strawn in New York. Now do you see where Helga Strawn comes in?"

Shandon, merely puzzled, shook his head at the bright eyes suddenly turned upon him.

"Assuming," went on Kinsell, "that it was Hume and not yourself who made that deposit at the Reno bank, don't you see that as things stand he has piled up a pretty piece of evidence against you? You might have done just that thing, deposited the money while the train waited, became alarmed at something, and gone back for it. I wonder if a cashier, after two years' time, would remember the features of a stranger so that he could say whether it was you or Hume? All right. Next, there's Helga Strawn. If she'd talk, if she'd tell us that she had a draft of five thousand and a Wells Fargo order for twenty thousand, that Hume had sent one and had explained that a friend would send the other, we'd have Mr. Hume in a certain place that men don't like to think of."

"Make her tell!" cried Shandon.

Kinsell arched his brows.

"She's out here for blackmail, isn't she? Let her understand what conditions are, and what's a clever woman's clever play? She'd go to Hume and say, 'Look here, Mr. Hume. I can crook my little finger and swing you off into space at the end of a rope. Or I can keep still and you can stand pat.' I fancy she'd do that. And she'd get her Dry Lands back."

"She can't be as bad as that!"

"Can't she? Wait until you have a talk with Jeanette Compton."

"It all depends upon Helga Strawn, then? There is a deadlock until you can get her to talk?"

"By no means. I'm just making a sort of unofficial report, you understand. I wanted you to know that while some people suspect you and some suspect Leland we are going ahead and getting the cards into our own hands. And I wanted to ask you what you thought of that mining proposition on the old McIntosh property? It's adjacent to yours, isn't it? Just the other side of Laughter Lake?"

"The McIntosh property, yes. The ridge rising on the other side of the lake is my boundary line. I hadn't heard of any mining being done there."

"No? Well, it seems a mining concern has found something. At any rate men are at work, a tunnel has been driven into the base of the ridge, and—I wonder what would happen if a charge of dynamite went off in due time and blew a hole right through, into the lake?"

"Good heaven!" cried Shandon angrily. "You mean that Hume and Leland are actually trying to steal my water?"

"I don't think Leland is in on this," replied Kinsell quietly. "He doesn't seem to me to be quite the crook Hume is."

"But," muttered Shandon, "if they once tear the side of that mountain out—"

"The milk will be spilt so badly that it cannot be put back into the pan? And the mining company, a Chicago firm, I believe, at any rate a crowd of men hired by a Chicago man, will claim that they were on their territory all of the time; that not one of their men, but some man hired by you, put in the charges that did the damage. It's a bold play, but then when it's make or break with a man he hasn't much picking and choosing to do."

"It won't take me long to get there," said Shandon grimly. "And I'm getting tired of this thing."

"But, surely," smiled Kinsell, "you don't object to having Hume pay for a part of the work you'll have to do soon or late, do you? Let him go ahead. Just before they get ready to do the real damage, we'll slap a little injunction on them."

"But how will we know?"

"That's all right. One of their foremen is drawing wages from you right now. You'll find a lot of interesting things in the expense account I put in, Mr. Shandon."



CHAPTER XXV

RED RECKLESS ON LITTLE SAXON

"I tell you, Hume, I don't like it. It's a piece of damned highway robbery and I'm rotten sorry I ever got mixed up in it."

Charlie Granger, stake holder of ten thousand dollars, cut viciously at the June grass with his riding quirt and snapped his words out bluntly as he came striding up to Hume. The latter stood, booted and spurred, among a group of men who had travelled across ten miles of broken country to this, the stipulated starting place of the race in which Hume and Shandon had months ago been the sole entries. Hume carelessly good natured, indifferent as usual, openly gratified over a bit of sharp work, merely laughed.

"You might as well hand over the money now, Charlie," he retorted without turning, his steely eyes brightening as they rested upon his mount, Endymion, who was fretting at the restraint imposed upon him by the man at his head. "The agreement took care of just such a matter as this; if only one man rides he gets the money."

Among the knot of men upon the little, pine fringed knoll, were Big Bill, Dart, MacKelvey and half a dozen of the curious from El Toyon and the mountain ranches. Hume's retort was taken in silence. But there was not a man who smiled or who did not think as Granger had spoken. Long ago, when it had first gone abroad that Wayne Shandon was promoting these races, the one essential thing he had planned had been thoroughly understood to be fair play, square dealing, straight racing. These were fair minded men, and although there was more than one among them who believed the fugitive guilty of the crime imputed to him, there was none who did not see the rank injustice of what was going to happen. The feature race of the day would be stolen. And they knew at whose instigation it was that Wayne Shandon was not here to-day.

It was early afternoon and already a number of the events had been run off before a clamorous, enthusiastic crowd of five hundred men and women. The Bar L-M at the surly orders of Big Bill had been turned into a place breathing welcome and revelry. Tents had been pitched under the big pines, making a white city gay with bunting and flags that would accommodate many visitors during the night; tables that had been constructed out in the open staggered under the load of provisions the wagons had brought from the nearest town; a platform for dancing later was already the playground of laughing children and frisking dogs.

The shorter races had taken place upon the flats below the range house, down toward the bridge. Under the glowing June sun, through the crisp air, with blue sky above and green grass underfoot, the contesting horses, each ridden by its owner, had shot by the brief lived village of tents, thundered past the platform where the judges sat, cheered and shrieked at by men and women. There had been races of half a mile, of a mile, of two miles. And now, as the hour appointed drew close, people began to forget that they had come to a race course, and to remember that their entertainment, open handedly given, came from a man who was a fugitive from justice and who was going to be robbed under their eyes of five thousand dollars. That strange thing, public sentiment, swerved abruptly. There were many men there that day who shook their heads and spoke in low voices, mentioning Sledge Hume's name.

"If Shandon could be tried by a jury picked from this crowd," meditated Edward Kinsell, "he'd go scot free in ten minutes!"

What this small group of men had to do upon the knoll ten miles from the Bar L-M was done perfunctorily and in gloom. Little by little, man by man, they drew away from Hume, leaving him standing alone. They looked at his horse, by long odds the finest animal they had seen this day, and from Endymion they looked to his master. Now and then a quick glance went to Big Bill. He said no word. His face was black with a wrath that seemed to choke him.

The starter, Dick Venable of White Rock, looked at his watch and this time did not return it to his pocket.

"It's two minutes of one," he said, his voice snapping out hard and curt. "This race is scheduled to start at one o'clock. All ready, Mr. Hume?"

"All ready," laughed Hume. He stepped to Endymion's head, jerked off the halter and swung up into the saddle.

"All ready, Shandon?"

Again Hume laughed. Dick Venable waited a moment and snapped his watch shut.

"My job's to start this race if there's one man here to run it," he said. "Shandon isn't here. It isn't my job to express any opinions. The first horse, ridden by either Sledge Hume or Wayne Shandon, to cross that line as a start and to break the tape by the platform at the Bar L-M wins the money. When I fire a gun you're off, Hume. Ready!"

The men began to turn away. Hume sat erect on his horse, coldly indifferent to the opinion these men held of him. He moved so that he held Endymion's restless head over the line marked by Venable's boot.

"All right, Charlie?" Venable asked of Granger.

"All right," grunted Granger. "And wrong as hell. Get it over with."

Venable raised his arm, his revolver high above his head. The bystanders swung up to their horses' backs. Two miles away another little group of men with field glasses were upon a ridge from which they could see the start, from which they in turn could signal the word to the crowd at the Bar L-M.

"Go!" said Venable listlessly.

There was a little puff of white smoke, the crack of a revolver, and Hume, laughing again, struck in his spurs and rode swiftly down the long slope. The men upon the ridge two miles off, as listless as Venable had been, ran up a big white sheet to flutter from a dead pine. This was the signal that the race was on, and that just one man was riding.

Suddenly Willie Dart was galvanized into excited action. He ran to Dick Venable, grasped him by the arm with both shaking hands, thrusting up a red face, and whispered eagerly. Venable started, stared at him and demanded sharply:

"What's that!"

But Dart had fled wildly to Jimmie Denbigh, the second starter and had whispered the same words to him. Denbigh stared as Venable had done and then with swift, long strides returned from his horse to Venable's side, close to the starting line.

Big Bill had mounted and was riding away, his eyes on the ground, refusing to follow the figure of a man he had come to hate most thoroughly. MacKelvey had gone to his horse and was jerking loose its tie rope. Dart was now close to MacKelvey's side.

Venable and Denbigh, conversing swiftly in undertones, looked blankly at each other, then at Dart's noncommittal back.

"The biggest little liar," began Venable disgustedly—

Hume was already a quarter of a mile on his way, riding on at a rocking gallop, a little eager, as was his way, to have the money waiting for him in his possession. But suddenly he turned abruptly in his saddle. There had come to him a great shout, the clamour of men's voices.

From the fringe of trees just back of the knoll, not a hundred yards from where MacKelvey and Dart stood, a great red bay horse shot from the thick shadows into the bright sunlight, floating mane and tall spun silk that flashed out like shimmering gold. And the same sunlight splashed like fire on the red, red hair of the man sitting straight in the saddle come at this late hour to ride his race at his own meet.

"Good God, it's Red Reckless!" boomed a startled voice.

Little Saxon cleared the fallen log in his way and as men swung hastily to their horses or drew back from before him he came on, running like a great, gaunt greyhound. Many voices were lifted, shouting. MacKelvey heard and understood. He shoved his foot into its stirrup and as he leaped into the saddle his revolver jumped out into his hand.

"I call upon you to give yourself up!" he shouted. "Stop, Red, or I shoot this time!"



Dart held a trimmed branch in his hand and as MacKelvey called Dart struck. The blow fell heavily upon the sheriff's wrist. MacKelvey cursed, wheeled his horse and without heeding Dart shouted again to Shandon.

Venable and Denbigh, forewarned by Dart's quick whispered words, had their eyes upon Shandon. They ran to the line that marked the start and stood, one at each end of it, their eyes bright, their hands pointing so that Shandon's start should be fair. And Shandon, tossing back his head as he rode, rushed down towards them, shot between them, turned down the knoll after Hume.

The gun in MacKelvey's hand spat flame and lead. The bullet, aimed high, hissed above Shandon's head.

"Stop!" cried the sheriff lustily, driving his spurs into his own horse's sides and dashing across the line between Venable and Denbigh. "By God, Red, I'll kill you!"

"Give him a chance, man!" bellowed Big Bill, his voice shaking, his face red. "Look at that damned cur Hume."

Hume had seen and again had turned, was bending over his horse's neck, using his spurs in the first start of his surprise. The men over yonder had an inkling of what was happening and their glasses were turned steadily upon the knoll.

Shandon without turning, laughed aloud, all the relief after months of hiding breaking out into laughter that was utterly unlike the sound that had come so short a time ago from Hume's contemptuous lips. It was a great, boyish, carefree, reckless laugh that made men wonder.

"Next time, Mac," he shouted back. "Ten to one you can't catch me before I beat Hume to it!"

Almost in his own words of many months ago Big Bill was muttering softly,

"God! What a pair of them!"

More than a quarter of a mile away Sledge Hume, his jaws hard set, his eyes burning ominously, was racing on, saving his horse a little now. Down the knoll drove Red Shandon, rushing on his race with a handicap in front and a revolver spitting its menace behind. Fifty yards after him, his face as hard as Hume's, came MacKelvey, thundering along on his big rawboned sorrel, the sheriff whom men already criticised for not making an arrest.

Upon the ridge where the signal men were, the levelled glasses were dropped as another square of white ran up the dead pine to carry its word that the race was now a two man race. The fifty yards between MacKelvey and Shandon lengthened as Shandon was forced to put Little Saxon to his best. For MacKelvey was shooting as he rode and he was not shooting for fun; there was no man in the county who wasted less lead than its sheriff.

Suddenly the knoll was deserted. Even Willie Dart had scrambled to his horse, even he was chasing along wildly, oblivious of the steep pitch, of a more than likely fall. To Big Bill's voice had joined other voices, shouting to MacKelvey to give the man a chance. But MacKelvey did not listen.

They tried to push their horses between him and the man it was his sworn duty to bring into court. But MacKelvey kept to the fore, realising that they would try to do just this thing. He raised himself in his stirrups and as his hand went up he fired for the third time. The cry that burst out after the shot was full of anger, for every one had seen Red Shandon suddenly crumple in his saddle. But Little Saxon, running as he had never run before, toward the trees that were thickening in front of him, swerved off to the left and was lost to the eyes of the men sixty and seventy-five yards behind. There the hammering of his hoofs came back to them from the hard ground of another ridge.

"If you've killed him," grunted Big Bill into MacKelvey's ear as his horse came abreast of the sheriff's, "you might as well make a clean-up and get me, too."

But in a moment they again caught sight of Little Saxon through the trees, and they saw that Wayne Shandon was still in the saddle, sitting bolt upright, that he had shifted his reins to his right hand, that his left arm was swinging grotesquely at his side.

"I got him," grunted MacKelvey.

Already, with close to ten miles ahead of him, with Hume still a quarter of a mile to the fore, Wayne Shandon's face had turned white, his shirt was slowly turning red. The bullet from the heavy calibre revolver MacKelvey used had struck in the shoulder.

"He's swerved out of his course," was MacKelvey's next thought. "He is losing ground right now. I'll cut him off before he can get to the bridge."

In the moment that the impact of the bullet made Shandon crumple and reel and clutch at his saddle horn, he went dizzy, almost blind with the shock. In that moment Little Saxon feeling the reins drop upon his neck, turned out to the left, striking for an open clearing. He should have turned to the right as a thicket of chaparral lay in front now, and there was no turning back. So, when Shandon's right hand shut down tight upon the reins, gathering them up, there was but one thing to do, turn still further to the left, skirt the thicket, try to turn to the right again upon the further side. He was losing ground and he knew it; but it was early in the race.

"They've handicapped us, Little Saxon," he said through set teeth. "But we'll show them a race yet."

Ten miles of broken country, of hard riding, and the blood was hot on the man's side and back while every leap of his horse shot him through with pain. Ten miles and Endymion, Little Saxon's full brother, would be half a mile ahead before the thicket was circled.

"After all Hume wins!" cursed Big Bill.

"It ain't fair! It ain't fair!" Dart's tremulous voice was shrieking from far in the rear. "That big boob—"

"There's ten miles of it, Little Saxon," Shandon was muttering over and over. "And the race isn't run yet. You won't let Endymion beat you, Little Saxon! You won't let Sledge Hume—"

He cut sharply through the outer edge of the thicket and Little Saxon's lean body, leaping like a greyhound's, lifted and glinted over the ragged bushes. He swung to the right again, and saw MacKelvey, Big Bill riding at his side, cutting across a little hollow to intercept him. And again, with no alternative, he turned his horse out of the course, and kept on up the higher land to his left.

Now Hume was lost to him; MacKelvey and the others dropped out of sight; and he was riding his race alone. He knew that Little Saxon could stand up under all that a horse could endure; but he knew, too, that no horse that was ever foaled could keep up such a mad pace for ten miles, that the gallant brute's heart would burst with five miles of it. He tightened his reins a little, forcing the horse against its will to slacken speed.

Now he bent in the saddle, easing his body as well as he could, trying not to feel the pain that grew steadily in his shoulder. The lower branches of the trees through which he sped whipped at him and he did not feel them. Far ahead he saw two squares of white fluttering high against the blue of the sky, and he knew the message that they carried across the miles. He thought of how he and Wanda had signalled, how she would be at the Bar L-M with the rest, how she would understand what those two signals meant. For he had not told her, he had told no one but Dart who had brought Little Saxon to him last night, and who, later, had told the starters at the last moment. Shandon had realised that there would be danger in this mad act of his and that had she known beforehand Wanda would have been frightened.

Again, a mile further on, he tried to swing back into the cleared course that would bring him the shortest way to the bridge. Again he saw that MacKelvey had anticipated this, and was coming close to killing his own horse to cut him off. And, his eyes growing black, the fear of the end of the race came upon him. Had he done this wild thing for nothing then? Was it but to be proof to the men who called him fool that fool he was? He bent his head and loosened his reins.

He knew that, far ahead of him, Sledge Hume was riding the easier way, that he was working down from the more broken rangeland, that he was steadily nearing the bridge in the straightest line. He knew that MacKelvey had a rifle strapped to his saddle and that long before now the rifle would be in MacKelvey's hands. He knew that at the end of the race Wanda Leland, her heart beating madly for him, was waiting.

"Can't you do it, Little Saxon?" he whispered. "For her sake, can't you do it?"

Mile after mile slipped away behind him, the course was half run, and he had not come down into the road which led to the Bar L-M. He knew that he was losing at every jump the great hearted horse made under him; he knew that it was not Little Saxon's fault as he had never known until now what speed and strength lay in that wonderful body. Who's fault, then? Hume was beating him, Hume would be at the finish laughing, waiting for him to come in—

"You've got to do it, Little Saxon," he cried softly, his voice pleading. "Why, we can't let Hume—"

He broke off suddenly, his eyes filling with light. He had seen the way—and it was Wanda who had shown it to him.

"Steady, Saxon," he said, his own voice steady, confident, determined. "We'll do it, little horse. Let Hume beat us to the Bridge; we'll take the short cut!"

From the Bar L-M grounds a faint cry went up as scores of lifted field glasses made out the figure of one man riding strongly toward the bridge. It was Hume, Hume alone, riding as Hume rode, well and erect. There was the hammer of Endymion's hoofs as they rattled against the heavy planking, and then—

"Look! Look! Oh, my God! Look!"

It was a woman's voice, a hysterical little woman from Reno, crying out, terror-stricken. Her arm had shot out; her finger was pointing toward the chasm of the river.

Then the shout that swept up about the Bar L-M was no longer faint. The voices of women were drowned in the deep roar of men's shouts. Wanda, her hands convulsively going to her breast, her face as white as death, moved her lips, making no sound. But her soul spoke and prayed, prayed to God not to let her mad lover do this mad thing. What was a race, what was defeat!

Wayne Shandon, riding as straight as Hume now, his hair flashing its red at them, his face strangely white,—some one cried that he was afraid,—had come to the short cut. His eyes leaving the way in front of him for a swift second saw the form of a girl standing out from the crowd and failed to see the crowd that was watching him, for the instant forgetful of Sledge Hume riding on his spurs, sweeping on across the bridge that rocked under him. Then Shandon's eyes came back to the black gulf where a white snowshoe rabbit had found death, which a white maiden had leaped for his sake.

"We can do it, Little Saxon," he said gently. "We can do it for Wanda, can't we? She'd hate to see us beaten by Hume. For Wanda, Little Saxon. Now!"

The roar of the water smote upon Little Saxon's ears, the deep chasm seemed a live and evil thing snapping at him. But he rushed on toward it, he felt his master's hand, he heard his master talking to him, and he had learned to love and trust his master. He swept on, down the slope, gathering speed at each great bounding leap, racing as few have seen a horse run, sensing the end of the race, sniffing victory with quivering flaring nostrils. He felt the sudden slackening of his reins as Shandon whispered, "Now!"; he knew that his master had put his life into his horse's keeping; knew that he was loved and trusted in this final moment even as he gave his own love and trust; and gathering the great, iron muscles of his great iron body, he leaped.

He leaped, flinging his body recklessly. Upon his back Wayne Shandon, sitting very still and tense and erect, his eyes upon the form of a girl, his life in Little Saxon's keeping, had essayed the thing that no one had expected even Red Reckless to do. The white froth of the water flashed under them, the jagged rocks menaced, the boom of the river deafened them. As he had leaped before, that first day when Shandon and Big Bill had come upon him, Little Saxon leaped now. And as he landed his hind feet sent a rattle of stones down into the hungering gulf below.

There had been a silence as of death. Now there was a shout that drowned the roar of the river robbed of its prey. Men yelled and threw their arms up and yelled again.

On came Endymion carrying Sledge Hume who had at last understood and who now was riding with bloody spurs and a quirt that cut in swift vicious blows at his horse's sweating hide.

On came Little Saxon, snorting his defiance to his brother, Red Reckless sitting straight in the saddle, his spurs clean.

Quick hands had run the taut string across the end of the course. Two big horses carrying two big men shot across it. But the breast of one had struck a dozen lengths ahead of the other, and through the echoing babel the judge's voice was lost as he shouted:

"Wayne Shandon on Little Saxon wins!"



CHAPTER XXVI

THE LAUGHTER OF HELGA STRAWN

"Will you tell your mistress," Sledge Hume commanded, "that I want to speak with her immediately? Immediately, do you hear?"

The capable looking maid favoured him with swift, keen scrutiny, noticed that Endymion, tied to the gate post, was sweating and dust covered, saw that Hume was dusty from riding and that his eyes were full of purpose, and went upon her errand. Hume stalked into the living room where he had grown to be so much at home, and driving his hands into his pockets stood frowning out of the window through which the warm fragrant June air came in from the sunny fields.

With the determination in his eyes there was the unhidden, black anger that had not been absent from them during the man's waking hours for a week. The spirit under the hard shell of a cool indifference had been touched, and was raw and quivering beneath the lashes his fate had brought upon him. On the day of the races he had lost five thousand dollars that he could ill afford to lose, and with it counted that he had lost another five thousand which he had told himself had always been as good as his. He had shown men that he was a bad loser, by flying into an ungovernable rage that vented its fury upon Endymion until savage voices cried to him to hold his quirt or he would be jerked from the saddle. He had seen that the slow turning tables were turning at last. He had seen Wayne Shandon, the man always in his way, white and fainting from sheer loss of blood, turn smiling and give himself up to the sheriff. He had seen Red Shandon the hero of a crowd that went wild over him; had heard even MacKelvey's rough voice crying bluntly, "There's a man for you!"

But anger and hatred, swelling venemously in his heart, had only hardened him, making him the more determined. He did not doubt, he did not fear. Not enough had happened to undermine the man's cold, dominating strength, to alter the essential fact in his mind that he was Hume and that people who strove against him were fools doomed to defeat. But before he heard the silken rustle of Helga Strawn's approach there was to come to him a new sign of the future that was rushing down upon him.

As usual Helga kept him waiting. He tapped at the window with a hand that he jerked impatiently from his pocket; he turned, thinking that he heard her steps; he walked back and forth in the room. And thus it happened that his eyes fell upon a large sheet of paper lying upon the table, his own name typed in capitals across the top. His frowning eyes read the few lines swiftly:

"Your tunnel is already one hundred and fifty-three feet upon Shandon property. That is far enough."

There was no signature.

A child has an instinctive fear of the dark; the thing a man does not understand brings from the obscurity of the unknown a certain, vague dread. Who had written this thing? There was no answer. Why? No answer. How did it come here, who could have known that Hume would see it here? No answer. It was as though a warning, taking form from the invisible air had fallen from the air before his startled eyes.

He swept up the paper, crumpling it in his fingers. He had not heard Helga Strawn, did not know that she was in the room until she spoke quietly.

"Is fate relenting? Or are you still playing the losing game?"

He swung upon her sharply. His eyes, glittering and hard, met hers softly luminous. He had never seen the woman so radiantly, regally beautiful, perhaps because he had never seen her so keenly alive as she was to-day. Although his brain was riotous with other things he could not fail to note the superb carriage, the rich gown daringly fashionable, the warm whiteness of arms and throat, the finely chiselled red lips that were unsmiling.

"The losing game?" he cried, coming swiftly toward her, stopping only when his tall form towered over her. "By God, no! I have lost a trick here, a trick there. A man counts upon that sort of thing. That little shrimp Conway is scared of his life and is for pulling out. I'm glad of it. He'll sell to me before he'll go to Shandon. Let Leland pull out, too. We'll take him over. I'm going to win, I tell you, Claire Hazleton! We're going to win, you and I. Win big!"

There was no change in her cool eyes. She swept by him, not turning out an inch to pass, her skirts brushing him, and dropped idly into her chair. He followed, and stood over her again.

"Shandon is going to be acquitted," she said. "You know that. He'll be set free in ten days. Then what?"

"Then we'll take him in with us. We'll get the water and that's all we want any way you put it. Inside six months we'll be subdividing and getting our money back."

She laughed.

"So you think that Shandon will jump at the chance to go into any sort of partnership with you?"

"We'll make him," crisply. "He has retained Brisbane, the biggest, highest priced criminal lawyer this side the Rockies. He has cleared up his mortgage but he's had to mortgage again to do it. He's in debt up to his eyes. We'll make him a proposition that will show him the way to clear himself. I tell you, Claire, he'll have to do it."

"You say we," she reminded him, lifting her white shoulders.

"And I mean you and I," he returned bluntly. "I've come here to do some straight talking." There leaped up into his eyes a light she had never seen there until now, a quick colour ran into his cheeks. "I want you to marry me, Claire."

Perhaps the woman's pulse quickened. Certainly no change in her expression, no quiver of a muscle, no deepened breathing told that a supreme moment had come into her life, a moment she had long and unceasingly striven for.

"Do you?" she asked indifferently. "Why?"

"Because," he cried, "you are like no other woman in all the world. Because the things that I want are the things that you want. Because we should be a man and a woman, mated, to take our places in the world and hold them. Where there is man's work I can do it; where there is woman's work you can do it. We are young; in ten years' time we can rise to whatever we care to set our eyes upon. Why do I want you? Just because in brain and in body you are the woman in the world fitted to occupy the place that shall be my wife's."

"Other men have asked me to marry them," she said coolly. "I think that all of them have said something about love."

"And I love you," he told her. "A man cannot come to care for a woman without her knowing it. I don't come to you bleating about a breaking heart, because you are no fool and I am no fool. If you were the kind to care about a lot of sentimental rot you wouldn't be the woman you are, you wouldn't be the woman I'd want. I'd be good to you. I'd give you the power that a beautiful woman with a strong, rich husband can come to have in San Francisco, in New York, in London if you like. When I rise you'll rise with me. I'll have men know that my wife shall have the place, above the heads of their wives, that she wants. And I'll be proud of you!"

Then he got his answer as seldom a woman has answered a man. She lifted her eyes to his, she put back her head with the tossing regal gesture he knew so well, her lips parted slowly—and she laughed. Laughed at him in a sudden mirth of leaping scorn, that was hard and cruel, that mocked and sneered at him, that took supreme toll of the supreme moment. Laughed as she saw the light quiver and die in his eyes, as the colour faded from his cheeks and ran back red.

"Love me!" she cried scornfully. "You'd be proud of me! Why? When you answered you forgot to tell the truth, Mr. Hume. Because you need me, because you are beaten now and must come hiding a whimper under big words, come to a woman who holds you so in the hollow of her hand that she can break you so utterly that your own overweening conceit cannot find the fragments with the microscope of a distorted vanity! Love me as you'd love any other fine thing just because it was yours. Because you'd use me, because you see that such a wife as I could be would be but a stone for you to stand on to climb up a little higher. And you think that of all men in the world I should choose a man like you for husband?"

She jeered openly at him, disdaining to see the red anger flaring in his eyes. She remembered the reason that had brought her to him in the beginning and a savage gladness in her rejoiced at finding the victory all that she had yearned for. Her dominant blood was seething to the surface. And it was Hume blood.

"Listen to me a minute," she cried sharply as he was about to speak. "You've come for straight talk to-day, you say. Let us have it then. You have gone your way boastfully, arrogantly, unscrupulously and it has been the fool's way. You are playing the losing game and it isn't even in you to lose like a man. You have stared at the glitter of gold so long that you have gone blind looking at it. Your own infallibility has loomed so large before you that you have lost your sanity. I say listen to me!" her voice ringing with its command. "I am going to tell you something. I am going to tell you why I came to you, why I suffered you day after day to come to me. And what I came for I am going to get. You are going to give it to me!"

She had sprung to her feet, twin spots of colour upon her white cheeks, her eyes blazing.

"You told me that you had paid five thousand dollars to Helga Strawn for her interest in the Dry Lands! Liar! You paid her twenty-five thousand!"

"Well?" he snarled harshly. "What of it?"

"You laughed about it. You said that she was a fool like most women. Like all women, was what you thought! And women were made just for you to tread upon and sneer at. You did not know that I knew a great deal more about Helga Strawn than you ever guessed!"

"You—know—Helga—Strawn!"

The words beat at her like stinging, separate blows. And now it had come into his eyes, the thing that had never been there, the thing that would never die out of the man's soul while life clung to him,—fear.

"I know you, to the last spot you think you've covered up," she ran on swiftly. "So well that I know I am about to stir you into one of your mad fits of rage. And I am not afraid to do it. You'd kill me if you dared, but you won't dare. For after all I think that in your braggadocio way you are a coward, Sledge Hume."

"You cat!" he flung at her with an attempt at his old manner.

"I have two men working out yonder," she said coolly. "If I called to them—" She shrugged her shoulders. "I want to tell you all that you are hungering to know even while you are afraid to hear it. Helga Strawn got your check for five thousand dollars. She got, also, a Wells Fargo order from Sacramento for twenty thousand. Sent by a fictitious Arnold Wentworth. Ah!"

For he had cried out sharply, his face was dead white, his eyes were filled with horror. His premonition had come.

"Who committed the crime you charged Wayne Shandon with?" she demanded fearlessly. "Who killed Arthur Shandon and robbed him of twenty-five thousand dollars? If Helga Strawn came into court and told all that she knows do you realise what a jury would say about it?"

"The things you are saying are lies," he cried back at her, driving his hands into his pockets that she might not see that they were shaking.

He stared after her in wonder as she went swiftly to the table and unlocked a drawer. He wondered more as she snatched out a folded paper and brought it to him.

"Sign that," she said curtly. "Get it witnessed before a notary and send it to me and Helga Strawn will forget what she knows."

A glance showed him the significance of the document. It was a deed, properly drawn, needing but his own signature to return to Helga Strawn the lands he had bought from her.

"So," he sneered, "you are trying a little blackmail, are you? You are a spy and Helga Strawn's agent, I suppose?"

Again she laughed at him.

"I attend to my own business, my dear cousin," her voice very like his. "If you hadn't been a fool you'd have known that I was Helga Strawn six months ago. Blackmail? Call it what you like. It is your one chance to save your neck. I know that in one of your mad fits of anger you killed Arthur Shandon. I know that you took his money. And I am not the only one in the country who knows or suspects it. Your chance is slim enough as it is, Mr. Hume. Don't make it worse."

Blow after blow until the man set his muscles like iron to keep his body from shaking as his soul shook. This was the greatest shock of all because it struck at the keynote of his nature, this knowledge that a woman had tricked him, that she had played with him, that now she held him as she said so bluntly, in the hollow of her hand.

"You traitress!" he cried hoarsely. "You miserable traitress!"

And Helga Strawn laughed.

"It will take you a couple of hours to ride into El Toyon," she said. "That will give you time to think it over. If you decide to sign the deed and send it to me to-night I'll do my part. If I don't get the deed to-night I'll go into town in the morning for a talk with the district attorney. I think I've got you where I want you, Mr. Hume."

The things which Hume said to her she accepted indifferently. She had never known that a man could find such words to utter to a woman. When she has listened long enough she turned and went out of the room, going upstairs and standing by her window where she could see him as he went out. As she saw him striding down the walk toward his horse, jamming the deed into his pocket as he went, her eyes suddenly grew wet, and she stamped her foot angrily.

"Of all men living I hate you most!" she cried passionately. And then, softly, more softly than any one had ever heard her speak, "And you come closer to being a man than any man I ever knew. I wonder—"

The fury within him demanding some sort of expression found it in the swift stride that carried him blindly down the walk. He came almost at a run to his horse. Endymion, mindful of the unprovoked blows and tearing spurs of a week ago, distrustful, afraid, whirled, rearing and plunging, and broke the reins that had been tossed over the post. Hume, venting upon a trifle the wrath that seethed within him, shouted angrily, cursing the horse that dashed by him.

The horse, seeing his way through the gate shut off, turned and dashed around the house, seeking a break in the yard fence. Hume ran after him, still cursing. The two men who were working in the yard lay down their rakes and shovels and came up. The three of them cornered the frightened brute. But when Hume, his hand outstretched for the dangling, broken rein, came within half a dozen feet, Endymion, snorting his fear, plunged by him, racing into another corner.

Again they closed about him, again he plunged through, mad with fear, making the madness in Sledge Hume a speechless, raging fury. A third time they tried, and as the big horse shot by Hume's temper mastered him as it had mastered him once before.

"God damn you!" he shouted wildly. "Take that!"

As he shouted he jerked his revolver from his pocket and fired. Fired, saw the big animal stagger and fired again.

He went to the stable for one of Helga's horses. His hands were shaking as he saddled and got the bit into the animal's mouth. With no look behind him he mounted, spurred out into the road and galloped off toward El Toyon.

Helga Strawn from her window coolly ordered the two men to put the wounded horse out of his misery and to drag him where she could not see him, But her eyes did not tarry with them, did not leave the big bulk of Sledge Hume until it had disappeared around a bend In the road. Then she went to her mirror and stood looking at herself with large, luminous eyes.

"I wonder," she whispered, "if he did love me, after all?"

She could never know. She knew that she could never know. And she went and threw herself, face down, on her bed.



CHAPTER XXVII

HUME RIDES THE ONE OPEN TRAIL

Hard driven, conscious of a compelling force more dominant than the strong will of a man, Sledge Hume rode the one trail open to him. It was as though the deeds of his life were now grown tangible separate squares of rock cemented into sheer walls rising about him, narrowing, forcing him into the one way open.

He rode into El Toyon and signed the deed before a notary. He returned it by a boy to Helga Strawn, and by the same messenger he sent back her horse. From the stable he hired another animal, and with no friendly word to man, woman or child, struck out for the Echo Creek. As he rode by the court house he looked at it curiously. Wayne Shandon was there, was spending his brief time in jail very much as an honoured guest. He would come out in a few days and then—then MacKelvey would be looking for another man—

Hume turned and rode back into town, going this time to the bank. Explaining briefly that he expected to turn a big deal and would need the ready cash, he drew out all but a few dollars of his emergency fund. His lips were tight pressed, his eyes hard, as he rode by the jail again and out into the county road. The sight of MacKelvey at an open window talking with Brisbane and Edward Kinsell, made him frown blackly. Little things had come to be full of significance.

It was nearly fifty miles to Martin Leland's. But Hume had ridden early to Helga Strawn and now had a strong, fresh horse under him. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was not yet half past nine. He could make it by half past four or five, riding hard. And he was in the mood for hard riding.

Very few times did he stop on the long way. Once he paused at a little road house for a pound of cheese and some bread; once at a certain crossing where a broad trail crossed Echo Creek. He sat here a moment, motionless, staring out across the little valley lying warm under the afternoon sun, his eyes running up and down along the course of the stream.

Raking his spurs against his horse's sweat-dripping sides he rode on. In half an hour he threw himself from the saddle at Leland's house.

He heard the sound of singing within, a girl's voice lilting wordlessly, happily, bespeaking a heart that was brimming with the pure joy of life and love. Striding to Leland's office he flung the door open. In a moment, answering his impatient rap, Martin entered.

"I've come to talk business," Hume said, flinging himself into a chair. "What's doing?"

"What do you mean, Mr. Hume?" Leland asked gravely.

"I want to know where you stand. Conway's strong for pulling out, eh?"

"I told you all that he wrote me."

"What have you done about it?"

"Nothing."

"You're going to buy him out?"

"No."

"Damn it!" cried Hume irritably. "Don't make me pump at you like a dry well! You know what I'm driving at. If Shandon goes clear where are you and I coming out?"

"Mr. Hume," returned the old man heavily, "I'm glad you came, for I was coming to you. Shandon is going clear. I've talked with his lawyer, I've talked with Kinsell—"

"What's Kinsell got to do with it?"

"Kinsell is a detective sent up here by Brisbane to work up the case. Also, I have talked with Wayne Shandon." This came slowly, with an evident effort, but it came calmly. "Shandon will go free because he is not the man who killed Arthur Shandon."

"You're swapping horses, eh?" sneered Hume.

"Perhaps not exactly. But I have gone to him and told him that I had allowed myself to think of him as a murderer for the illogical but none the less potent reason that I hated his father. And I apologised to him, having no other amends to make."

"Cut the sentimental drivel short," cut in Hume unpleasantly. "Have you gone over to his side of the deal? Are you throwing me down and tying up with him?"

"No." Leland threw out his hands in a wide gesture. "I am done with the whole thing."

"And what happens to me! Here I am in up to my neck and you go and chuck the thing. Do you think I'll stand for the double cross like that?"

"Hume," cried Leland sharply, "I don't want to quarrel with you. I am quitting because I am ashamed of the things I have already done. I tried to blind myself by thinking that I was usurping the prerogative of God, in telling myself that it was my duty to punish. Now I am ashamed, I tell you. And not a second too soon can you understand and the world know that you and I are in no way interested in each other. I have learned since I saw you that you were going on with a matter which I can have nothing to do with."

"What's that?"

"I refer to the way in which you are seeking to tunnel from the McIntosh property into Shandon's, to take the water whether or no. That may be in your mind a bold stroke of business. I can't countenance that sort of thing."

"Ho! How you've taken the robe of righteousness upon your shoulders! And after trying to steal Shandon's ranch from him on a mortgage!"

Martin made no reply. Not once during the conversation did his eyes light with anger; not for a moment was the underlying shadow of sadness gone from them. He was holding a strong rein upon himself. He was judging himself now; he was passing judgment upon no other man.

Hume, glancing at him quickly, curiously, felt that he knew what Leland was thinking. Then his mind came back abruptly to his own interests.

"So you don't know what Conway is going to do?"

"I have advised him to sell to Shandon and to give Shandon the time he wants to make his payments."

"And you will sell to Shandon too?"

"I think not. My holdings are too heavy for him to swing. No, I am going to give them away."

"Not to him!"

"No, not to him. He wouldn't accept them. To my daughter—for her wedding present. And I pray God that they will bring her more happiness than they have brought me."

Hume's big fist came smashing down upon the table.

"By God, you've got to buy me out! I'm ruined, ruined, I tell you, if you and Conway drop me now."

"I'll do it." The calm words surprised Hume who had expected a blunt refusal. "Upon one consideration. Namely that you sell to me at the figure which you paid. I am willing to play fair and I think that that is fair. It leaves you where you started. It leaves me where I started except that I shall have been spending a good many thousands for Wanda's wedding present."

Hume, his brows knitted, rose to his feet and strode back and forth in the room, trying to look his problem squarely in the face. Failure confronted him, and failure was more hideous to him than the shame, dishonour, disgrace, which would accompany it. In a flash that left his face drawn he saw himself as he had never seen himself before.

He went to the window looking out into the fields over which the afternoon sun was dropping low. He wanted to think; and he did not want Martin Leland to see his face. He heard Wanda singing happily. Her voice was not like Helga's, and yet, tinkling through it he seemed to hear Helga's cool laughter.

"I'm tired out," he said abruptly, coming back to Leland. "Let me have a bed. We'll settle it in the morning."

Leland looked at him curiously. This was unlike Sledge Hume's usual way. But, offering no remark he showed Hume his room.

It was far into the night before Hume's tired body found the rest of deep sleep. It was long after sunrise when he awoke. It had been a man's voice that jarred upon his ears even in sleep, that finally brought him to his elbow with a start.

Slipping out of bed he stepped quickly to his window. There were three horses in the yard, saddled, sweaty and dusty. MacKelvey's heavy voice came to him again from Leland's study.

He dressed swiftly, his eyes glittering. Spinning the cylinder of his revolver, he shoved it into his pocket and into another pocket thrust the thick pad of bank notes which had been under his pillow during the night. Then he went back to the window.

He could hear Julia in the kitchen. He could hear Leland's voice now, now MacKelvey's, then another man's. Was it Johnson's?

"That cursed woman," he muttered bitterly. "She double crossed me after all. God! I was a fool!"

He did not hesitate. Kinsell was a detective, who had been in Shandon's hire for six months. A hundred little things that had been trifles at the time came back to him now to whisper that Kinsell had known a long time. And Helga had given them the rest of the evidence they lacked. Helga, a woman, had tricked him, had deceived him, had made him love her in the only way love was possible to this man, and then had laughed at him and doublecrossed him.

Making no sound he slipped out of the window, and stooping low so that from no other window could he be seen, he ran around to the back of the house. A glance at the saddled horses in the yard showed him that their legs were shaking, that they were done up from a hard ride. He moved on, further from the house, dodging behind a tree, stopping to listen, to peer out, hearing the maddening beat, beat, beat of his own heart. He must have a horse and then as Wayne Shandon had done, he could disappear into this wilderness of rocks and trees, hide for weeks or months, and at last get out of the country. Flight lay before him; his quickened senses told him what lay behind unless he fled now and swiftly.

"MacKelvey's a fool at best," he grunted, snatching at a ray of hope. "Once I get on a horse—"

He was taking a chance but he had to take chances. Making a short circuit he ran at last, still stooping as he ran. He came safely to the stable, selected a powerful looking horse, threw on the saddle with hasty hands. The bit was troublesome, the horse, with head lifted high, fought against it with big square teeth clenched. But at last the job was done and Hume rode out at the side door, his spurs in his hand, not taking time to buckle them on.

He began to think that his luck was with him now. He rode slowly at first, afraid of the noise of his horse's hoofs. A quick glance behind showed him the three horses in the yard, no man or woman in sight.

Which way? There was scant time for reflection. It was time for inspiration, for the flash of instinct. He felt the pad of bank notes safe in his pocket. He would ride straight to the Bar L-M, cross the bridge, turn out from the range buildings, reach the upper end of the valley. He would cross over the ridge to where his hirelings were tunnelling. There was a man among them who was not afraid of the law, a man who would help him, who would go to hell for the half of that sheaf of paper.

He buckled on his spurs and drove them into his horse's sides.

In the study MacKelvey was saying:

"I dunno. We may have some trouble. Brisbane has gotten an injunction all right, but that crowd of Hume's looks like a bad one. I have sent two men on ahead to the Bar L-M. Been deputies of mine on more than one hard job. By the way, talking of Hume, seen him lately?"

"Yes," Martin answered. "He's here now. In bed. He stayed last night with me. Do you want to see him?"

"Nothing urgent. I wanted to ask him if he wants to sell Endymion. Shandon wants to buy him back."

Hume, riding furiously, pushed on through the forest, keeping a course parallel to the road, near enough to see any one who might be riding there, far enough to conceal his horse and himself behind a grove or ridge. So at last he came to a knoll from which he could look down upon the bridge, not over a quarter of a mile away. There were two men there, sitting their horses idly and yet seeming to the man's distorted imagination to be watching every shadow flickering through the woods. He jerked his horse to a quivering standstill.

He had recognised one of the horses, a great wire limbed pinto. It was a horse familiar in El Toyon, one of MacKelvey's string.

"Damn him," snarled Hume, his eyes flashing like bright steel.

From behind a fringe of trees he watched the two deputies. They made no move to go on. Ten minutes he waited, ten minutes of precious time. Twice he felt that their eyes had found him out, twice he called himself a fool. Five minutes more and then, from behind him, he heard the pounding of hoofs.

"It's MacKelvey and the rest," he told himself angrily. "They've got me like a trapped rat. Damn them. Damn that traitress!"

He dipped his spurs and shot down a knoll, hoping to be out of sight, to wait until they had passed, then to double on his trail. But his luck had deserted him. He did not know the woods here, he lost ground in going about a rocky pile of earth, and MacKelvey caught sight of him.

"Hume!" came the big voice. "Hold on!"

"Hold on!"

It was as though the world, filled with shouting voices, was calling behind him. Like an undertone through it the cool laughter of a woman.

He drove his spurs deeper, he swung his snorting beast about, he raised his quirt striking mightily with it, and rushed on. Where? It did not matter. Anywhere except toward the men in front, anywhere as long as it was away from the men behind. He heard MacKelvey call again, more loudly, he saw the sheriff wave his arm at him, and he rode on, his head down now, careless of where he went so that the way led him farther, farther from what lay behind.

Suddenly, booming in his ears, came the roar of the river. On, his leaping horse carried him, stumbling, threatening to unseat its rider, plunging on. The roar of the river grew louder; again there were ten thousand voices shouting, clamouring, yelling at him. He topped a last ridge here and looking down saw the black chasm of the river, the steep banks.

"If I only had Endymion! God! If I only had Endymion."

He jerked savagely at his reins, stopping his horse. As he looked back and saw that MacKelvey and Johnson and another man were riding toward him. He glanced again at the deep chasm of the river. A quick shudder swept through him and left him steady, whitefaced, cold.

"Hume!" shouted MacKelvey.

Then Hume's spurs drank blood again, once more his frightened horse was leaping under him, plunging down toward the river. Louder and louder yelled the many voices, mocking, jeering, calling, echoing away into titanic laughter. And through it all, like the fine note of a violin through the pulsing of an orchestra, sounded the cool music of a woman's laughter.

"Curse her!" shrieked Hume. "Curse them all. A fool girl did this, a fool Shandon did it—"

Like a missile from a giant's catapult he rushed down the steep slope; MacKelvey, from the ridge watched him and wondered. He saw that the man had shaken his reins loose, that his horse had almost reached the verge of the chasm, that as the animal was ready to gather his great muscles for the leap the reins had tightened a little, spasmodically, as though the rider's nerve had failed him. And then that they loosened again as though he had seen it was too late or had regained his nerve.

The horse leaped far out, struck the opposite bank, seemed to hang there a brief second, straining, balancing, and then with its rider dropped backward.

The roar of the water boomed on like the clamouring of a world of voices; through it ran a finer note like the cool laughter of a woman; and upon Sledge Hume's white face, as he lay still upon a jagged stone before the current swept him away, the little drops of spray were like a woman's tears.



CHAPTER XXVIII

"IT IS HOME!"

To those who loved the sensational in and about El Toyon the trial of Wayne Shandon was a disappointment. Never had the courthouse been more crowded, never had the setting been more stimulating to their highly coloured imaginations. Red Reckless, looking to their eyes picturesquely pale from his confinement and the sheriff's bullet; Brisbane with his poker table face and his reputation; Edward Kinsell, whose smiling manner no longer concealed the glamour which clung about so distinguished a detective; Martin Leland apparently older, less stern, his eyes gentler; Mrs. Leland, confident and happy from her talk with Shandon's attorney; Wanda, her eyes very bright, her cheeks flushed, her heart yearning, hoping, praying and a little afraid; Helga Strawn, now known by her own name, and linked by rumour with the man who had paid the penalty for the crime of which he had accused Wayne Shandon, her manner cool, aloof; even Willie Dart, whom everybody knew and who in some strange way had come to be looked upon as a special detective, imported a year ago by the counsel for the defence.

The district attorney's argument was cool, dispassionate, perfunctory. He showed no interest in securing a conviction for the very simple reason that he felt none. Brisbane was a further, deeper disappointment. He failed to live up to the reputation that had preceded him. He constantly studied his watch and a time-table during the argument of the prosecution and when it was done audibly asked the district attorney concerning the best train out of El Toyon. He said what he had to say to the jury in less than half an hour. When charged by the judge the jury filed out with grave faces only to file back in five minutes smilingly.

"Not guilty, your honour!"

Since the principals had seemed to put little fervour into the occasion the good people of El Toyon supplied the deficit. Amid great shouting and cheering Wayne Shandon made his smiling, hand-shaking way down through his friends, coming straight to the girl whose eyes were the happiest eyes that he had ever seen, shining through a mist of tears.

There was no hesitation now as Martin Leland put out his hand.

"I wronged you, Shandon," he said simply. "And I think that I knew it all the time. It hasn't made me happy. I hope that you will accept my congratulations."

"Thank you," answered Shandon. And he locked Leland's hand heartily in his own.

Mrs. Leland had her motherly greeting to make and said it happily. Nor did she use unnecessary words. In a moment she had slipped her arm through her husband's and was moving with him through the surging crowd, leaving Wayne with Wanda.

"Say, Red!" Mr. Dart, struggling valiantly with the crush, red faced and triumphant, was screaming up into Shandon's face. "Some business, ain't it, pal? Shake! Shake, Wanda! Where's old Mart? Good old scout after all, ain't he? I want to go squeeze his flipper; I want to go squeeze everybody's flipper. I want to go get drunk. Honest I do, Red!"

Big Bill shoved a great, hard hand by Dart's shoulder, gripping Shandon's. He didn't say anything, but his tightening hand, his flashing eyes were eloquent.

Only when they had passed out into the courthouse yard, Wanda and Wayne side by side, and had been left behind by the hat-tossing, clamorous crowd, hastening out into the street, did Wanda speak.

"I am so happy, Wayne," she whispered. "Doesn't it seem as though life were just beginning all over this morning?"

"Like just beginning!" he answered softly, drawing her arm tight, tight to his side. "With you, Wanda."

There came a bright morning with the sun just blinking genially above the tree tops, with the warm glory of the full summer in the air, and under Wanda's window a voice calling softly. She had been asleep; she was not certain that she had not been dreaming—

But the call came again, still softly, still ringing with a note which sent a flutter into her breast.

"Awake at last?" and Wayne was laughing happily. "Ten minutes to dress, my sleepy miss, and meet me at the stable. I'm going to saddle Gypsy."

She heard him hurry away, and for a little she lay still, smiling.

He caught her up into his arms, as she came down the path, kissed her, told her not to ask questions and helped her into the saddle. He swung up to Little Saxon's back and together they rode out into the forest through the brightening morning.

"Wayne," she said when he had done nothing but look at her and drive the colour higher and higher into her cheeks. "Where are we going?"

"Can't you guess?" he teased her.

They were riding toward the north, toward the cliffs standing up about Echo Creek Valley, toward the cave.

"Wayne," she said again, a little sadly, "I was going to tell you the other day, but you were in such a hurry— You are not going to the cave?"

"Why not?" he asked lightly.

"I can't go there any more," she answered quickly. "I had come to love it so, it was so entirely ours, dear. And now, I saw it the last time I rode that way, there's a sign on the cliffs, 'No Hunting Allowed.' I asked papa. He has sold all that side of the valley, the cliffs and the flats beyond to some man in the city."

Shandon laughed.

"What's the odds?" as lightly as before. "Come right down to it, Wanda, the cave has served its purpose, hasn't it? And, if you'd been shut up in it like a prison, I wonder if you'd have any sentiment for it left? Let's make the horses run a bit. I feel like a gallop, don't you?"

She bent forward in the saddle hurriedly, hiding her face from him. How should a man care for the little things which mean so much to a girl?

But still they rode toward the cliffs. The sign was there, a black and white monstrosity which hurt her but which seemed merely to interest Shandon. He insisted on riding closer. And when, too proud to show him all that she felt, she came with him to the big cedar, he dismounted and put out his hands to her.

"Let's go up," he said lightly. "Just for fun."

She refused, and he insisted. And at last they climbed up.

Wayne was upon the ledge of rock before her, his eyes filled with a love that shone sparklingly, laughingly into her troubled ones. She began to wonder—

She turned swiftly toward the entrance of the cave. There was a door now made of great rough hewn slabs of wood. Wayne slipped his arm about her and drew her close to it.

"Will you open it?" he whispered.

"Wayne!" wonderingly, seeking to understand.

He took her hand in his, laid it for a moment upon his lips, then put her fingers against the great door.

"Open it, dear," he told her.

Slowly the heavy, wide portal swung back to her touch. Her heart beating madly, she scarce knew why, her step at once eager and hesitant, she stepped by him. And he, close behind her, laughed softly at her little cry, the one moment amply repaying the man for six months of labour.

Now she understood everything; now her heart stood still and then throbbed with a wonderful joy. And she turned and threw her arms about his neck, crying softly: "Wayne! It is home!"

For the darkness which she had expected in the cavern's deep interior had fled before the softly brilliant light that bathed it rosily, that came from she did not yet know where. She saw a deep throated fireplace, built of big granite blocks, a monster log blazing and roaring mightily in it, the flames leaping up the rock chimney, drawn upward and back into the sloping passage where the draft of air had in the old days carried away the smoke from her rude stove. And she guessed who had made the fireplace, piling stone on stone.

She saw a table, rustic, heavy, with legs of twisted cedar branches, with books upon it, with a vase made of a hollowed out, gnarled limb and choked with its great armful of valley flowers. She saw a chair that patient, loving hands had made from what the winter-locked forest had provided, seat and back covered with deerskin cushions, a chair that opened its arms to her as though, still keeping its identity as a part of her woodland, it were welcoming her to a world where love's heart beat close to nature's. She saw that the hard floor had disappeared under freshly strewn pine needles and under the two big bear skin rugs which sprawled mightily before the table and before the fireplace. She saw another chair, Wayne's chair it was going to be, because it was such a monster.

She could only gasp as her dancing eyes tried to see everything at once—flowers everywhere, hiding the walls, breathing perfume from the corners, drooping from the ceiling.

"But the light!" she cried, wonderingly. "It is like day."

Then at last she saw how everywhere in the high ceiling he had chiselled out deep inverted bowls, and in each cup-like cavity nothing in the world other than a glowing electric bulb was shining, flooding the room with a soft glow.

"And you did all of this yourself? While you were alone here in the winter?"

His eyes were like hers, his own face flushed with the happiness of the hour.

"I didn't make the bulbs," he laughed. "It's taken me a week playing electrician to get the wires up, the dynamo running back there under the water fall. Do you like it?"

She did not answer. She had no time to answer, she was so busy trying the two chairs, inhaling the fragrance of the flowers, admiring the fireplace, examining the reading lamp which hung over the table and which he had constructed of wood, chosen for beauty of natural colour and grain, the opaque sides shutting out the light which fell straight down upon an open book.

Only now did she realise that the cave seemed smaller. There was a partition running across it, a wide door standing ajar. He followed her as she ran to it.

"My bedroom," he warned her. "I won't swear to its tidiness."

Here again was the soft glow of electric lights cunningly concealed with nowhere a hint of the wires that ran in deeply chiseled grooves; here was a wide couch, a bit of the woodland, as were the chairs and table, the rough bark still upon the woodwork, cushions and coverlet of bearskin; here a smaller table, a smaller chair.

"It's wonderful, you wonderful Wayne!" she cried delightedly.

But he had his arm about her again and was leading her toward the fireplace, to it, through another door which opened to the passage leading to the chasm where the water leaped down toward the bowels of the earth. The door flung open, the passage filled with light and a fresh surprise.

Across the chasm were logs as large as one man could handle, hewn so that they lay close together, so that their upper surface made a level floor. Wanda and Shandon crossed, hearing the water shouting under them. And here, where Wanda had never been before, they came upon—

"The kitchen!" she cried. "A real kitchen!"

With a real stove, only that it was made of slabs and squares of granite, a real kitchen table only that it was made from rough pine and cedar, with the bark still on it; and very real dishes. Most of all the real fragrance of coffee just boiling over. Wanda ran to retrieve it and Wayne went on ahead of her. In a moment he called.

All new to her, the short climb upward along a flight of steps cut in the rock, the little winding way up which she ran eagerly, the narrow rock platform, the door against which he stood.

"First," he commanded gaily, "turn and look back."

She turned. Looking down she saw the kitchen; looking outward she saw a great cut through the cliffs where they seemed to fall apart in a steep sided ravine, and through this she looked out and down over her forests.

"The view from My Lady's bedroom," he laughed. "And now My Lady's bedroom, itself."

He threw open the door, standing aside to watch her pass.

A tiny rudely squared chamber, all in white. Countless warm, furry pelts of the snowshoe rabbits he had trapped during the winter, made a white carpet underfoot; a couch unlike the other in that this was fashioned entirely of white pine, the smooth surfaces polished and glistening under their many coats of shellac, a coverlet of countless other white rabbit skins stitched together; a little dressing table of glistening white pine, with a real mirror reflecting two flushed happy faces, and on the floor a big white bearskin.

"And you did it all, every bit, yourself!"

That was the thought that flooded the caves for her with a light more softly radiant than the glow of innumerable electric bulbs; the thought which hid the little flaws in stone and woodwork and gave a gleam to them that no mere shellac and white wood could have done.

They went back to the living room to stand, silent for a little, before the fireplace. They watched the flames shoot upward through little sprays and clusters of fiery sparks. Their hands crept together, clinging close. Slowly their eyes came away from the fire and sought each the other's. And she saw what he saw, a love that is eternal and that understands.

THE END