eyes, as they met his, were full of
questioning fear. Had he come from the Bitter Root range to hunt down her
brother? The thought was intolerable. Yet, when he had bade her good-bye
some three weeks ago, he had told her that he did not expect to return
much before the fall "round-up." She had heard, a day or two before, that
he was again in the Wind River country, and her morning vigil beneath the
glare of the desert sun had been for him.

Mrs. Dax regarded them with the mercilessness of a death-watch; she
remembered the time when Hamilton's excuses for his frequent presence at
the post-office had been more voluble than logical. But now he no longer
came, and Judith, for all her deliberate flow of spirits, did not quite
convince the watchful eyes of Leander's lady--the postmistress was a trifle
too cheerful.

"Mrs. Dax," pleaded Peter, boyishly, "I'm perishing for a cup of coffee,
and I've got to get back to my outfit before dark."

"Oh, go on with you," whinnied the gorgon; but she left the room to make
the coffee.

Judith's eyes sought his. "Why don't you and Leander form a coalition for
the overthrow of the enemy?" His voice had dropped a tone lower than in
his parley with Mrs. Dax; it might have implied special devotion, or it
might have implied but the passing tribute to a beautiful woman in a
country where women were few--the generic admiration of all men for all
women, ephemerally specialized by place and circumstance.

But Judith, harassed at every turn, heart-sick with anxiety, had
anticipated in Peter's coming, if not a solution of her troubles, at least
some evidence of sustaining sympathy, and was in no mood for resuscitating
the perennial pleasantries anent Leander and his masterful lady.

The shrilling of the locusts emphasized their silence. She spoke to him
casually of his change of plan, but he turned the subject, and Judith let
the matter drop. She was too simple a woman to stoop to oblique measures
for the gaining of her own ends. If he was here to hunt down her brother,
if he was here to see the Eastern woman at the Wetmore ranch--well, "life
was life," to be taken or left. Thus spoke the fatalism that was the
heritage of her Indian blood.

The thought of Miss Colebrooke at Wetmore's reminded her of a letter for
Peter that had been brought that morning by one of the Wetmore cow-boys.

"I forgot--there's a letter for you." She went to the pigeon-holes on the
wall that held the flotsam and je