all along. You told me that
Culver Rann and the others were after the gold. They've gone--and their
going isn't quite 'skipping the country' as you meant me to understand it,
John Aldous! So please let's not argue any more. If we do we may quarrel,
and that would be terrible. I'm going. And I will be ready in the morning.
And I want a gun. And I want you to be nice to me, and I want it to be our
honeymoon--even if it is going to be exciting!"

And with that she put her lips to his, and his last argument was gone.

Two hours later, when he went to the coulee, he was like one who had come
out of a strange and disturbing and altogether glorious dream. He had told
Joanne and the Blacktons that it was necessary for him to be with MacDonald
that night. Joanne's good-night kiss was still warm on his lips, the loving
touch of her hands still trembled on his face, and the sweet perfume of her
hair was in his nostrils. He was drunk with the immeasurable happiness that
had come to him, every fibre in him was aquiver with it--and yet, possessed
of his great joy, he was conscious of a fear; a fear that was new and
growing, and which made him glad when he came at last to the little fire in
the coulee.

He did not tell MacDonald the cause of this fear at first. He told the
story of Mortimer FitzHugh and Joanne, leaving no part of it unbared, until
he could see Donald MacDonald's great gaunt hands clenching in the
firelight, and his cavernous eyes flaming darkly through the gloom. Then he
told what had happened when the Blacktons went to town, and when he had
finished, and rose despairingly beside the fire, Donald rose, too, and his
voice boomed in a sort of ecstasy.

"My Jane would ha' done likewise," he cried in triumph. "She would that,
Johnny--she would!"

"But this is different!" groaned Aldous. "What am I going to do, Mac? What
can I do? Don't you see how impossible it is! Mac, Mac--she isn't my
wife--not entirely, not absolutely, not in the last and vital sense of
being a wife by law! If she knew the truth, she wouldn't consider herself
my wife; she would leave me. For that reason I can't take her. I can't.
Think what it would mean!"

Old Donald had come close to his side, and at the look in the gray old
mountaineer's face John Aldous paused. Slowly Donald laid his hands on his
shoulders.

"Johnny," he said gently, "Johnny, be you sure of yourself? Be you a man,
Johnny?"

"Good heaven, Donald. You mean----"

Their eye