A mighty leap had carried them beyond the blazing barrier.

"No man can cross this bridge, unless--unless--"

"Back! back! I'm a-comin' with Queen Bess!"

"I'm standin' face to face with my own father's murderer--Lem Lindsay."





CHAPTER I.


She was coming, singing, down the side of Nebo Mountain--"Old
Nebo"--mounted on an ox. Sun-kissed and rich her coloring; her flowing
hair was like spun light; her arms, bare to the elbows and above, might
have been the models to drive a sculptor to despair, as their muscles
played like pulsing liquid beneath the tinted, velvet skin of wrists and
forearms; her short skirt bared her shapely legs above the ankles
half-way to the knees; her feet, never pinched by shoes and now quite
bare, slender, graceful, patrician in their modelling, in strong
contrast to the linsey-woolsey of her gown and rough surroundings, were
as dainty as a dancing girl's in ancient Athens.

The ox, less stolid than is common with his kind, doubtless because of
ease of life, swung down the rocky path at a good gait, now and then
swaying his head from side to side to nip the tender shoots of freshly
leaving laurel. She sang: