seemed to hear again the wind in the pine above the grave of the
murdered girl. She was calling, calling--would he come back? Back
from the grave, could he come? The words of the giant mountaineer
seemed burned into the father's brain; Hell couldn't hold him
against such as that."

Then the man with the proud face, the face of a scholar and poet,
drew back from the window, shaking with a fear he could not
control. He crept into a corner and crouched upon the floor. With
wide eyes, he stared into the dark. He prayed.

And this is how it came about that the stranger, who followed the
Old Trail along the higher sunlit ground, followed, also, the
other trail down into the valley where the gloomy shadows are;
there to live at the ranch near the haunted cabin--the shepherd of
Mutton Hollow.





CHAPTER VII.

WHAT IS LOVE?


Sammy Lane rode very slowly on her way home from the Matthews
place that morning after the stranger had arrived. She started out
at her usual reckless gait, but that was because she knew that
Young Matt was watching her.