shadows. Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated. Every moment of
Lance's stay was imperiled by a single word that might spring from
his suppressed white lips; beyond and above the suspicions his sudden
withdrawal might awaken in her father's breast, she was dimly conscious
of some mysterious terror without that awaited him. She listened to the
furious onslaught of the wind upon the sycamores beside their cabin, and
thought she heard it there; she listened to the sharp fusillade of rain
upon roof and pane, and the turbulent roar and rush of leaping mountain
torrents at their very feet, and fancied it was there. She suddenly
sprang to the window, and, pressing her eyes to the pane, saw
through the misty turmoil of tossing boughs and swaying branches the
scintillating intermittent flames of torches moving on the trail above,
and KNEW it was there!

In an instant she was collected and calm. "Dad," she said, in her
ordinary indifferent tone, "there's torches movin' up toward the diamond
pit. Likely it's tramps. I'll take the squaw and see." And before the
old man could stagger to his feet she had dragged Lance with her into
the road.




CHAPTER VI.


The wind charged down upon them, slamming the door at their backs,
extinguishing the broad shaft of light that had momentarily shot out
into the darkness, and swept them a dozen yards away. Gaining the lee of
a madrono tree, Lance opened his blanketed arms, enfolded the girl, and