into a tangled web of circumstances not calculated in the role of
Rangers.

I went back to the ranch with regret, remorse, sorrow knocking at my
heart, but notwithstanding that, tingling alive to the devilish
excitement of the game.

I knew not what it was that prompted me to sow the same seed in Diane
Sampson's breast that I had sown in Steele's; probably it was just a
propensity for sheer mischief, probably a certainty of the truth and a
strange foreshadowing of a coming event.

If Diane Sampson loved, through her this event might be less tragic.
Somehow love might save us all.

That was the shadowy portent flitting in the dark maze of my mind.

At the ranch dancing had been resumed. There might never have been any
interruption of the gaiety. I found Miss Sampson on the lookout for me
and she searched my face with eyes that silenced my one last qualm of
conscience.

"Let's go out in the patio," I suggested. "I don't want any one to hear
what I say."

Outside in the starlight she looked white and very beautiful. I felt her
tremble. Perhaps my gravity presaged the worst. So it did in one
way--poor Vaughn!

"I went down to Steele's 'dobe, the little place where he lives." I