anything."

Ahead, the lamps were beginning to twinkle in the little settlement which
had sent such a contrast in citizenship as Mary Ewold and Pete Leddy out
to the pass. They were approaching a single, isolated building, from the
door of which came a spray of light and the sound of men's voices.

"That is Bill Lang's place," Mary explained. "He keeps a store, with a
bar in the rear. He also has the post-office, thanks to his political
influence, and this is where I have to stop for the mail when I return
from the pass."

She had not spoken with any sense of a hint which it was inevitable he
should accept.

"Let me get it for you;" and before she had time to protest, he had
dismounted, drawing rein at the edge of the wooden steps.

She rode past where his pony was standing. When he entered the door, his
tallness and lean ease of posture silhouetted in the light, she could
look in on the group of idling male gossips.

"Don't!"

It was a half cry from her, hardly audible in an intensity which she knew
was futile in the surge of her torturing self-incrimination. Why had she
not thought that it would be here that Pete Leddy was bound to wait for
anyone coming in by the trail from Galeria? The loungers suddenly dropped
to the cover of boxes and barrels, as a flicker of steel shot upward, and
behind the gleaming rim of a revolver muzzle held rigid was a brown hand