e. Teams were moving
toward the barns, and barn-hands were watering those which had already
returned. There was a general stir everywhere. Certain stock was
being corralled and hayed for the night. In the hay corral men were
busy cutting and hauling feed. There was no loneliness, no solitude.
The business of so great an enterprise as the Obar Ranch involved many
hands, and seemingly endless work.

But Elvine watched these things without interest. In her present state
of mind they meant nothing to her, they could mean nothing. She was
waiting, waiting in a perfect fever for the home-coming of her husband.

Strangely, too, she was not without a glimmer of hope. Somehow the
belief had taken possession of her that had Jeff learned anything of
her story he must have been home before this. It seemed to her that he
must have flung every consideration to the winds, and rushed in fevered
haste to denounce her as the murderess of his twin brother.

The mysterious note which had been flung in through her open window had
left her sleepless for the rest of the night, but, even so, now, in the
broad light of day, it was only relatively alarming. The other terror
overwhelmed it.

The sun was already tinting the hilltops with ruddy, golden hues. The
frigid snow-caps no longer wore their sheen of alabaster. There was a
golden radiance everywhere, a suggestion of a perfect peace, such as
the woman felt could never again find place in her heart.

She turned her eyes from the splendor of the scene in silent protest.
The green of the wide-spreading valley, even the dark purple shadows of
the lower mountain slopes were better in harmony with her mood. But
even these she denied in her nervous irritation, and again, and yet
again, her searching gaze was flung out to the northwest along the
trail over which she knew her husband must come.

The waiting seemed endless. And the woman's heart literally stood
still when at last she detected an infinitesimal flurry of dust away on
the far distance of the trail. A mad desire surged through her to flee
for hiding to those vast purple solitudes she knew to lie in the heart
of the hills.

She remained where she was, however. She stirred not a muscle. She
was powerless to do so. What, what had the coming of the man for her?
It was the one absorbing question which occupied her whole brain and
soul.

The dust flurry grew to a long trail in the wake of a horseman. In
five minutes