to Meander; but he wasn't hurrying on
my account, as you know. He tried to see me there in Meander, but I
refused to meet him. The day before yesterday he came here and solicited
my help in carrying out a scheme. I refused. He threatened me with
exposure and arrest on account of false entry and affidavit."

Agnes told then of her ride into the hills, the meeting with the herder,
and subsequent events up to the shooting. But she said nothing of
Boyle's base proposal to her, although her face burned at the
recollection, giving Slavens more than half a guess what was behind that
virtuous flame.

"And so, you poor little soul, all your plans for your City of Refuge
are shattered because you refuse to sacrifice somebody to keep them
whole," said he.

"No matter," she returned in that voice of abnegation which only a long
marching line of misfortunes can give a woman or a man command over. "I
have decided, anyway, to give it up. It's too big and rough and lonesome
for me."

"And that person whom you put up your heart and soul to shield," he went
on, looking steadily into her face and pursuing his former thought, "has
something in his possession which this man Boyle covets and thinks he
must have? And the cheapest and easiest way to get it is to make you pay
for it in the violation of your honest principles, if he can drive you
to it in his skulking way?"

She bowed assent, her lips tightly set.

"Yes," said he. "Just so. Well, why didn't Boyle come to me with his
threats, the coward!"

"No, no!" she cried in quick fright. "Not that; it is something--something
else."

"You poor dissembler!" he laughed. "You couldn't be dishonest if you
wanted to the worst way in the world. Well, don't you worry; I'll take
it up with him today."

"You'll _not_ give it up!" she exclaimed vehemently. "All your hopes are
there, and it's yours, and _you'll not_ give it up!"

"Never mind," he soothed, again taking her hand, which she had withdrawn
to aid in emphasizing her protest. "I don't believe he'd carry out his
threats about the United States marshal and all that."

"You'll not give it up to him unless he pays you for it," she
reiterated, ignoring her own prospect of trouble. "It's valuable, or he
wouldn't be so anxious to get it."

"Perhaps," Slavens assented.

"I'm going to leave here," she hurriedly pursued. "It was foolish of me
to come, in the first place. The vastness of it bewildered me, and 'the
lonesomeness,' as Smit