had once told her it was.

Judge Colton entered the room and interrupted her reverie by handing
her a paper. In the first black headline she saw Slade's name and
Harris's; an announcement of the last chapter of the Three Bar war.

The first line of the article stated that Slade, the cattle king, had
been released. There was insufficient proof to convict on any count.
She felt a curious little shiver of fear for Harris with Slade once
more at large. The article retold the old tale of the fight and
portrayed Slade, on his release, viewing the range which he had once
controlled and finding a squatter family on every available ranch site.

She had a flash of sympathy for Slade as she thought his sensations
must have been similar to her own when she had looked upon the ruins of
the Three Bar. But this was blotted out by the knowledge that he had
only met the same treatment he had handed to so many others; that he
had dropped into the trap he had built for her. She found no real
sympathy for Slade,--only fear for Harris since Slade was freed. The
old sense of responsibility for her brand had been worn too long to be
shed at will. She knew that now.

"I suppose you'll be surprised to hear that I'm going back," she said.

Her father's old friend smiled across at her and puffed his pipe.

"Surprised!" he said. "Why, I've known all along you'd be going back
before long. I could have told you that when you stepped off the
train."

He left her alone with Deane when the younger man arrived. She plunged
into her subject at once.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But I'm going home. I'm not cut out for
this--not for long at one time. In ten days they'll be rounding up the
calves and I'll have to be there. I want to smell the round-up fire
and slip my twine on a Three Bar calf; to throw my leg across a horse
and ride, and feel the wind tearing past. I'm longing to watch the
boys topping off bad ones in the big corral and jerking Three Bar
steers. It will always be like that with me. So this is good-by."

Four days later, in the early evening, the stage pulled into Coldriver
with a single passenger. The boys were in from a hundred miles around
for one last spree before round-up time. As the stage rolled down the
single street the festivities were in full swing. From one lighted
doorway came the blare of a mechanical piano accompanied by the scrape
of feet; the sound of drunken voices raised in song issued from the