"You can't save him now," replied Tull stridently.

Her head was bowing to the inevitable. She was grasping the
truth, when suddenly there came, in inward constriction, a
hardening of gentle forces within her breast. Like a steel bar it
was stiffening all that had been soft and weak in her. She felt a
birth in her of something new and unintelligible. Once more her
strained gaze sought the sage-slopes. Jane Withersteen loved that
wild and purple wilderness. In times of sorrow it had been her
strength, in happiness its beauty was her continual delight. In
her extremity she found herself murmuring, "Whence cometh my
help!" It was a prayer, as if forth from those lonely purple
reaches and walls of red and clefts of blue might ride a fearless
man, neither creed-bound nor creed-mad, who would hold up a
restraining hand in the faces of her ruthless people.

The restless movements of Tull's men suddenly quieted down. Then
followed a low whisper, a rustle, a sharp exclamation.

"Look!" said one, pointing to the west.

"A rider!"

Jane Withersteen wheeled and saw a horseman, silhouetted against
the western sky, coming riding out of the sage. He had ridden
down from the left, in the golden glare of the sun, and had been
unobserved till close at hand. An answer to her prayer!

"Do you know him? Does any one know him?" questioned Tull,