Where had she gone, his troll, with the face of an angel? Where had she
gone? Where would she go, except to her devil's lover at Slow Down Ranch?

He had just started for Slow Down Ranch armed with his greasy, well-
thumbed Bible like a weapon in his pocket, when he heard a voice call
him. It was full of the devil's laughter. It was the voice of
Burlingame, the lawyer, on his horse. Burlingame had had a weary day
and was refreshing himself by a canter on the prairie.

"Where are you going?" asked Burlingame, as he cantered up to Mazarine's
wagon.

"To Slow Down Ranch?"

He saw the look of the drowned man in the face of Mazarine, over whom the
flood of disaster had passed, and he guessed at once the cause of it; for
Burlingame had the philosophy of a Satanic mind, and he knew the things
that happen to human nature.

"So, she's gone again, has she?" he added deliberately, with intent to
put a knife into the old man's feelings and to turn it in the thick of
them. He wanted to hurt, because Mazarine had only a short time before
dispensed with his services as a lawyer, and had blocked the way to that
intimacy which he had hoped to establish with Tralee and its mistress.
Besides, his pride as a professional man had been hurt, and he had been
deprived of income which now went to his most hated professional rival.
Mazarine's jealous soul had cut him off, on coming to know Burlingame's
dark reputation. He had not liked the look Burlingame had given Louise
when they met.