ndered
if it were a heart, indeed, or perhaps only a metal imitation. But girls
like Margaret Earle, though they sometimes were attracted by him,
invariably distrusted him. He was like a beautiful spotted snake that
was often caught menacing something precious, but you could put him down
anywhere after punishment or imprisonment and he would slide on his same
slippery way and still be a spotted, deadly snake.

When Gardley left the camp that Monday morning following the walk home
with Margaret from the Sabbath service, he fully intended to be back at
the school-house Monday by the time the afternoon rehearsal began. His
plans were so laid that he thought relays from other camps were to guard
the suspected ground for the next three days and he could be free. It
had been a part of the information that Forsythe had given the stranger
that Gardley would likely pass a certain lonely crossing of the trail at
about three o'clock that afternoon, and, had that arrangement been
carried out, the men who lay in wait for him would doubtless have been
pleased to have their plans mature so easily; but they would not have
been pleased long, for Gardley's men were so near at hand at that time,
watching that very spot with eyes and ears and long-distance glasses,
that their chief would soon have been rescued and the captors be
themselves the captured.

But the men from the farther camp, called "Lone Fox" men, did not arrive
on time, perhaps through some misunderstanding, and Gardley and Kemp and
their men had to do double time. At last, later in the afternoon,
Gardley volunteered to go to Lone Fox and bring back the men.

As he rode his thoughts were of Margaret, and he was seeing again the
look of gladness in her eyes when she found he had not gone yesterday;
feeling again the thrill of her hands in his, the trust of her smile! It
was incredible, wonderful, that God had sent a veritable angel into the
wilderness to bring him to himself; and now he was wondering, could it
be that there was really hope that he could ever make good enough to
dare to ask her to marry him. The sky and the air were rare, but his
thoughts were rarer still, and his soul was lifted up with joy. He was
earning good wages now. In two more weeks he would have enough to pay
back the paltry sum for the lack of which he had fled from his old home
and come to the wilderness. He would go back, of course, and straighten
out the old score. Then what? Should he stay in t