e pretences; you know that I am
going to my brother, who is an outlaw--my brother, the rope for whose
hanging is already cut. And yet we have been friends these many years, and
we meet in this world of desolation and weigh each other's words, and
there is no trust in our hearts. Our little faith is more pitiful than the
cruel errands that bring us. I take it you, too, are going to my
brother's?"

"I'm going there to see that you arrive safe and sound, but I had no
intention of going when I left camp. You've brought me a good twenty miles
out of my way, not to mention accusing me of ulterior motives. Now, aren't
you penitent?" He smiled at her, boyish and irresistible. To Judith it was
more reassuring than an oath. "It's like dogs fighting over a picked bone;
the meat's all gone. The range is overworked; it needs a good, long rest."
He turned towards Judith, speaking slowly. "What you have said is true.
We're friends before we're partisans of either faction. I'm on my way to a
round-up. There's been an unexpected order to fill a beef contract--a
thousand steers. We're going to furnish five hundred, the XXX two hundred
and fifty, and the "Circle-Star" two hundred and fifty. Men have been
scouring the enemy's country for days rounding up stragglers. It will go
hard with the rustlers after this round-up, Judith."

She felt a great wave of penitence and shame sweep over her. She had not
trusted him; in her heart she had nourished hideous suspicions of him, and
he was telling her, quite simply, of the plans of his own faction,
trusting her, as, indeed, he might, but as she never expected to be
trusted.

"Peter, do you know that sometimes I think Jim has gone quite mad with
these range troubles. He's acted strangely ever since his sheep were
driven over the cliff. He's not been home to Alida and the children since
he has been out of jail, and you know how devoted to them he has always
been! He spends all his time tracking Simpson. Alida wrote me that she
expects him to-night, and I'm going there on the chance."

"It's the devil's own hole for desolation that he's come to." Peter looked
about the cup-shaped valley that was but a _cul-de-sac_ in the mountains.
Its approach was between the high rock walls of a canon. Passing between
them, the rise of temperature was almost incredible. The great barrier of
mountain-range, that cut it off from the rest of the world, seemed also to
cut it off from light and air. The atmosphere hu