to such unaccountable excitement. When
he did, however, he beheld a golden chestnut horse quietly grazing as it
made its way leisurely towards the ribbon-like stream which flowed in
the bosom of the mysterious valley. "Lord" Bill's voice was quite
emotionless when he spoke.

"Ah, a chestnut!" he said quietly. "Well, our quest is vain. He is
beyond our reach."

For a moment the girl looked at him in indignant surprise. Then her mood
changed and she nearly laughed outright. She had forgotten that this man
as yet knew nothing of what had all along been in her thoughts. As yet
he knew nothing of the secret of this hollow. To her it meant a world of
recollection--a world of stirring adventure and awful hazard. When first
she had seen that horse, grazing within sight of her uncle's house, her
interest had been aroused--suspicions had been sent teeming through her
brain. Her thoughts had flown to the man whom she had once known, and
who was now dead. She had believed his horse had died with him. And now
the strange apparition had yielded up its secret. The beast had been
traced to the old, familiar haunt, and what had been only suspicion had
suddenly become a startling reality.

"Ah, I forgot," she replied, "you don't understand. That is Golden
Eagle. Can't you see, he has the fragments of his saddle still tied
round his body. To think of it--and after two years."

Her companion still seemed dense.

"Golden Eagle?" he repeated questioningly. "Golden Eagle?" The name
seemed familiar but he failed to comprehend.

"Yes, yes," the girl broke out impatiently. "Golden Eagle--Peter
Retief's horse. The grandest beast that ever stepped the prairie. See,
he is keeping watch over his master's old
hiding-place--faithful--faithful to the memory of the dead."

"And this is--is the haunt of Peter Retief," Bill exclaimed, his
interest centering chiefly upon the yawning valley before him.

"Yes--follow me closely, and we'll get right along down. Say, Bill, we
must round up that animal."

For a fleeting space the man looked dubious, then, with lips pursed, and
a quiet look of resolution in his sleepy eyes, he followed in his
companion's wake. The grandeur--the solitude--the mystery and
associations, conveyed by the girl's words, of the place were upon him.
These things had set him thinking.

The tortuous course of that perilous descent occupied their full
attention, but, at length, they reached the valley in safety. Now,
indeed, w