result of that labor out of her life. It stung him again to the quick
every time he thought of it. There was something wrong. He felt that a
hundred hands of affection gave him hold on her. And yet all those grips
were brushed away.

The torment was setting him on fire. And the fire was burning away the
smug complacency which had come to him during his long life in the
valley.

When El Sangre pulled out of his racing gallop and struck out up a slope
at his natural gait, the ground-devouring pace, Terry Hollis was panting
and twisting in the saddle as though the labor of the gallop had been
his. They climbed and climbed, and still his mind was involved in a haze
of thought. It cleared when he found that there were no longer high
mountains before him. He drew El Sangre to a halt with a word. The great
stallion turned his head as he paused and looked back to his master with
a confiding eye as though waiting willingly for directions. And all at
once the heart of Terence went out to the blood-bay as it had never gone
before to any creature, dumb or human. For El Sangre had known such pain
as he himself was learning at this moment. El Sangre was giving him true
trust, true love, and asking him for no return.

The stallion, following his own will, had branched off from the Bear
Creek trail and climbed through the lower range of the Blue Peaks. They
were standing now on a mountain-top. The red of the sunset filled the
west and brought the sky close to them with the lower drifts of stained
clouds. Eastward the winding length of Bear Creek was turning pink and
purple. The Cornish ranch had never seemed so beautiful to Terry as it
was at this moment. It was a kingdom, and he was leaving, the
disinherited heir.