clean--Miss Cornish!"

Vance saw his sister wince under that name from the lips of Terry. But
she did not speak.

"There'll be no return," said Terence sadly. "My trail is an out trail.
Good-by again." And so he was gone.



CHAPTER 17


Down the Bear Creek road Terence Hollis rode as he had never ridden
before. To be sure, it was not the first time that El Sangre had
stretched to the full his mighty strength, but on those other occasions
he had fought the burst of speed, straining back in groaning stirrup
leathers, with his full weight wresting at the bit. Now he let the rein
play to such a point that he was barely keeping the power of the stallion
in touch. He lightened his weight as only a fine horseman can do,
shifting a few vital inches forward, and with the burden falling more
over his withers, El Sangre fled like a racer down the valley. Not that
he was fully extended. His head was not stretched out as a cow-pony's
head is stretched when he runs; he held it rather high, as though he
carried in his big heart a reserve strength ready to be called on for any
emergency. For all that, it was running such as Terry had never known.

The wind became a blast, jerking the brim of his sombrero up and
whistling in his hair. He was letting the shame, the grief, the thousand
regrets of that parting with Aunt Elizabeth be blown out of his soul. His