prang to seize, like an
eager guest leaping through the portal of welcome.

At that moment, when eye drew eye, heart warmed to heart, and lips
trembled to meet, Jerry Boyle coughed as if blood were mounting to his
throat and cutting off his life.

Dr. Slavens was at his side in a moment. It must have been the
strangulation of an uneasy dream, for there was no symptom of
hemorrhage. The wounded man still slept, groaning and drawing the lips
back from the teeth, as he had drawn them in his passion when he came on
that morning to meet his enemy with the intention in his heart to slay.

But love shuddered and grew pale in the cold nearness of death. The kiss
so long deferred was not given, and the fluttering pulse which had
warmed to welcome it fell slow, as one who strikes a long stride in a
journey that has miles yet to measure before its end.

Governor Boyle was back in camp in the middle of the afternoon, and
before night the tents and furnishings for lodging the party comfortably
arrived from Comanche. The Governor pressed Agnes, who was considering
riding to Comanche to find lodging, to remain there to assist and
comfort his wife when she should arrive.

"We need the touch of a woman's hand here," said he.

They brought Jerry's tent and set it up for her. She was asleep at
dusk.

* * * * *

Mrs. Boyle arrived next morning, having started as soon as the messenger
bearing news of the tragedy reached the ranch. She was a slight,
white-haired woman, who had gone through hardships before coming to
prosperity on that frontier, so the fifty-mile ride in a wagon was no
unusual or trying experience for her.

Whatever tears she had for her son's sad plight she had spent on the
rough journey over. As she sat beside him stroking his heavy hair back
from his pallid brow, there was in her face a shadow of haunting
anxiety, as if the recollection of some old time of terror added its
pangs to those of the present.

Her presence in camp, and her constant ministrations at her son's side,
relieved Dr. Slavens of considerable professional anxiety, as well as
labor. It gave him time to walk about among the gigantic stones which
cast their curse of barrenness over that broken stretch, Agnes with him,
and make a further investigation of the land's mineral possibilities.

"Ten-Gallon was telling the truth, in my opinion," said he. "I have
explored these rocks from line to line of this c