" he said, "I
cannot face him. Not that I fear death, but there would be a thousand
damnations in it if I died knowing that he would have you after my eyes
were closed. I told you he could not take you--not living, my dear. Dead
he may have us both."

"John!" said the girl, staring and bewildered. "In the name of pity,
John, in the name of all the goodness you have showed me, don't do it."

He laughed wildly. "I am about to lose the one thing on earth I have
ever cared for, and still I can smile. I am about to die by my own hand,
and still I can smile. For the last time, will you stand up like your
old brave self?"

"Mercy!" she cried. "In Heaven's name--"

"Then have it as you are!" he said, and she saw the sun flash on the
steel, and he raised the gun.

She closed her eyes--waited--heard the distant drumming of hoofs on the
turf of the hillside. Then she caught the report of a gun.

But it was strangely far away, that sound. She thought at first that the
bullet must have numbed, as it struck her. Presently a shooting pain
would pass through her body--then death.

Opening her bewildered eyes she beheld John Mark staggering, the
automatic lying on the ground, his hands clutching at his breast. Then
glancing to one side she saw the form of Ronicky Doone riding as fast as
spur would urge his horse, the long Colt balanced in his hand. That,
then, was the shot she had heard--a long-range chance shot when he saw
what was happening on top of the hill.

So swift was Doone's coming that, by the time she had reached her feet
again, he was beside her, and they leaned over John Mark together. As
they did so Mark's eyes opened, then they closed again, as if with pain.
When he looked again his sight was clear.

"As I expected," he said dryly, "I see your faces together--both
together, and actually wasting sympathy on me? Tush, tush! So rich in
happiness that you can waste time on me?"

"John," said the girl on her knees and weeping beside him, "you know
that I have always cared for you, but as a brother, John, and not--"

"Really," he said calmly, "you are wasting emotion. I am not going to
die, and I wish you would put a bandage around me and send for some of
the men at the house to carry me up there. That bullet of yours--by
Harry, a very pretty snap shot--just raked across my breast, as far as I
can make out. Perhaps it broke a bone or two, but that's all. Yes, I am
to have the pleasure of living."

His smile was g