whom I helped to a hiding-place to save his life—for you know they would have killed him, they came here for his death——"

"And if they did," he interposed, "what is his life or death to you?"

"That man," she continued, waving his interruption aside, "did me a cruel wrong—you know it well. He killed my love for him. Love once dead rises no more. I have no grain of love left for the man who insulted, wronged, deserted me. But I tell you now that he wronged me less than you do if you say to me that you 'know enough!' You do not know enough. You must know all. Rick, you have said you loved me. You have made me love you. You shall hear me now!" She spoke not pleadingly, but with passionate resolution.

"What have you to say?" he rejoined, sternly still, but less bitterly.

"That if you love me you must trust me! If you love me you must respect me! The woman who could turn a helpless, hunted fugitive—even a stranger—from her doors would be unworthy of love or respect."

"This man was no stranger!"

"He came to me as one, not dreaming that I lived here. Would you ask me, because he was not a stranger, to revenge myself for a wrong of years ago by refusing to him the help I would have given to any stranger? You could not think that I would stoop to so base a revenge as to hand him over to death when I would have given up no other man who stood in his place? I would not turn a dog away that came to me for help and shelter. He came here, not knowing whose house this was—came to ask for food and help because he was exhausted, famishing. It was as much a surprise to him to find me here as it was to me to see who the man was who asked me for shelter. And I promised it to him, and I kept my word. He told me what he had done, and that the Vigilance Committee were on his track. I've lived here long enough to know what that means! I would not see the man who appealed to me to save him lawlessly murdered. He has done wrong; he deserves punishment; but he does not deserve the fate they would have dealt to him."

"They'd have strung him up on that big tree outside your gate," said Colonel Jeff, grim still, but relenting, "and serve him right!"

"I did not think he deserved death," rejoined Barbara, firmly; "I risked—more than my life"—her voice quivered for the first time—"to save him."

"You did," he said; "you risked having your good name dragged in the gutter, for the sake of that worthless scamp."

"I risked more than that," she returned in a lower tone.

"More than that?" He shot a keen, questioning glance at her from under his dark, heavy brows.

"Yes—I risked—and have I lost?—your faith?"

He paused a moment before he answered: "Barbara, when a man loves as I do, he loves to the end of life—and after!"

A light kindled in her steadfast, questioning eyes.

"Then I have not lost your love, Rick?"

"I love you always."

"But—your faith?" she urged. "One is worthless to me without the other."

"Do you say that my love is worthless, Barbara?"

"If it is given without your trust, it is the setting without the jewel. Trust me, Rick—or, leave me!"

"I trust you, my love," he replied, catching her hands and holding them fast and close in his strong clasp. "Who could look in those eyes of yours and doubt that you're true and pure as truth itself? But, my darling, you've been foolish—with a woman's noble folly! Rash and reckless—with an angel's courage! You have ventured too much—in such a cause. These matters are not for women. Our Vigilante justice may be rough and ready, but it fits the time and place. Anyhow, we keep the neighbourhood so that the worst class of characters give it a wide berth. You should not have crossed its path, my Barbara. It was not safe for you; and for all that you have hazarded, he is not safe; they'll get him yet."

"No, they will not; you will not betray him?"

"No. To betray him would be betraying you! Not for his sake, but for yours, I'll hold my tongue. But what will he do? He cannot stay here."

"He need not. He can have my brother's horse, my brother's overcoat and hat. He can take the trail up the gully under cover of the night, or with the first streak of dawn."

"But your brother? Tom Thorne's a pretty hard citizen; what will he say?"

"I don't know. And, Rick, I don't care! I've taken this on myself, and I'll see it through. I know Tom may be hard—and Hatty, too. The worst they can do is to turn me out of the house. And if they do——"

"You'll come to mine! Be mistress of all I have—queen of my home—my wife!"

As the first pale pearly streak of dawn was stealing over the snow-capped peaks of the Sierras, Oliver Desmond bowed his head—as he had never bent it to mortal man—before the woman who had risked so much for his safety, and raised her hand to his lips, as if it were the hand of a shrined saint. And Colonel Jeff stood by, grim and silent. For good or ill, Rick Jeffreys was thorough. He had promised, and he would keep his word.