y and white column, turned
his face to the winding road and the landing below, where the whistling
ferryboat lay impatient of their coming--whither Willett had already
gone.

Was Willett thinking of that bygone scene this breathless evening in
the heart of the desert valley, and the shadow of the westward
mountain, as his once successful soldier rival came silently forward to
grace his triumph in the field of love? Harris at least was not. His
bearing was quite undramatic, simple, dignified. His greeting was
almost too simple. "I can't give you my right hand, Miss Archer," said
he, smiling gravely, "and I won't give a left-handed felicitation. It's
my first opportunity," he continued, as he stood quietly before her,
looking straight into her blushing face, "and I'm sorry it has to be in
such shabby fashion." Then just as quietly and squarely he spoke to
Willett, the gray-blue eyes looking keenly into the brown. "You are
mightily to be congratulated, Willett," said he, "and we'll shake hands
on it as soon as I have a hand to shake with."

"I knew you would, old fellow!" said Willett, putting forth the
unoccupied hand and laying it upon the other's shoulder, a
well-remembered way of his when he wished to be effusive. "I'm coming
round presently to have a talk--but couldn't help coaxing you out now."

"How--_is_ your shoulder, Mr. Harris?" began our Lilian, all observant
of physical ills. On these, at least, she could pour the balm of her
sympathy.

"Doing finely, thank you; and, pardon me, but the general is
signalling. You're both wanted, I judge," and then, like the Union
force at Second Bull Run, fell back in the best of order, in spite of
the worst of blows.

"I'll be with you again before a great while, Hefty, old boy," again
called Willett over his shoulder, as though insistent on an invitation;
but an assenting nod was all that came. The general had signalled to
his children because of the concern in Bentley's face at sight of
Harris confronting all that happiness, but Bentley need not have feared
for him. He would not have feared could he have seen the little thing
that happened. She had put forth a slender hand, half timidly, as
Harris stepped backward. She was thinking even in the overmastering
presence of this hero whom she worshipped, and to whose side she clung,
of that moonlit evening on the veranda, of the hiss and skirr of the
deadly rattler, of the peril that had menaced and the quick wit and
nerve