strong men. Yet I am always saddened when I see one come out on
the border."

"I think I knew what I was bringing Helen to, and she didn't flinch,"
said Sheppard, somewhat surprised at the tone in which the
colonel spoke.

"No one knows until he has lived on the border. Well, well, all this
is discouraging to you. Ah! here is Miss Helen with my sister."

The colonel's fine, dark face lost its sternness, and brightened with
a smile.

"I hope you rested well after your long ride."

"I am seldom tired, and I have been made most comfortable. I thank you
and your sister," replied the girl, giving Colonel Zane her hand, and
including both him and his sister in her grateful glance.

The colonel's sister was a slender, handsome young woman, whose dark
beauty showed to most effective advantage by the contrast with her
companion's fair skin, golden hair, and blue eyes.

Beautiful as was Helen Sheppard, it was her eyes that held Colonel
Zane irresistibly. They were unusually large, of a dark purple-blue
that changed, shaded, shadowed with her every thought.

"Come, let us walk," Colonel Zane said abruptly, and, with Mr.
Sheppard, followed the girls down the path. He escorted them to the
fort, showed a long room with little squares cut in the rough-hewn