we don't want anybody except our own outfit."

"I'd like that myself," admitted Pan thoughtfully. "If you've got good
gentle teams maybe Mother an' Lucy can take turns. We'll try it,
anyhow."

"I'll help you hitch up," said Smith, following Pan out. "Son, do you
look for any trouble this mornin'?"

"Lord no. I'm not looking for trouble," replied Pan. "I've sure had
enough."

"Huh!" ejaculated Blinky. "Your dad means any backfire from Marco.
Wal, I say there'll be nothin'. All the same we want to move, pronto."

"I'd like to hear what happened after we left," said Pan.

"Somebody will tell us," returned Smith.

They had reached the end of the arbor when Lucy's voice called after
them: "Pan--please wait."

He turned to see her coming, twisting her apron in nervous hands.
Pan's father and Blinky kept on toward the barn. Lucy came hurriedly,
unevenly, pale, with parted lips, and eyes that held him.

"Mother said you knew but--I must tell you--myself," she said brokenly,
as she halted close to him. "Day before yesterday--those men brought
word you'd been--killed in a fight over wild horses. It broke my
heart.... I'd have taken my own life but for my father. I didn't care
what happened.... Dick pressed me hard. Father begged me to save him
from prison.... So I--I married Dick."

"Yes, I know--I figured it out that way," returned Pan in strange thick
utterance. "You didn't need to tell me."

"Why, Pan, you--you seem _different_," she said, as if bewildered.
"Your look--your voice ... oh, dear. I know yesterday was awful. It
must have driven you mad."

"By heaven, it did!" muttered Pan under his breath.

"But you--you forgive me?" she faltered, reaching to touch him with a
shaking hand. The gesture, so supplicating, so tender, the dark soft
hunger of her eyes, the sweetness of her then roused a tumult in him.
How could she look at him like that? How dared she have such love
light in her eyes?

"Forgive you for?--" he cried in fierce passion. But he could not put
into words what she had done. "I meant to kill that dog, Dick Hardman.
But I didn't.... Forgive you--" he broke off, unable to go on.

She was slow to grasp his intimation, though not his fury. Suddenly
her eyes dilated in horror. Then a great wave of scarlet blood swept
over her white neck and face. Pan saw in it the emblem of her shame.
With a rending of his heart he swung away and left her.

He plunged into the work at h