s of the
south. In silence they joined her.

'I don't know whether I love this country or hate it most,' Helen said
without withdrawing her troubled eyes from the expanse of Desert
Valley. The sun was down, the distances were veiled in tender shades,
pale greens of the meadowlands, dusky greys of the hills. 'If it were
only all like that; if there were only the glorious valley and the
peace of it instead of this hideous life up here!'

It was in Alan Howard's heart to cry out to her, 'Come down into the
peace of it; it is all mine. Come down to live there with me.' It may
have been in John Carr's heart to whisper: 'It is mine until the last
cent is paid on it; if you love it so, there may still be the way to
get it back for you.' But neither man spoke his thought. The three
stood close together, the girl with troubled eyes standing between the
two friends, and all of their eyes searched into the mystery of the
coming dusk.

From the cabin came the sound of a laugh. It was Longstreet's, and it
was like a pleased child's.

Chapter XX

Two Friends and a Girl

Howard and Carr rode down into the darkening valley side by side. The
silence of the coming dusk was no deeper than that silence which had
crept about them while the three stood upon the cliff's edge.
Longstreet's laugh had whipped up the colour into Helen's cheeks and
had lighted a battle fire in her eyes. She had whisked away from them
and gone straight back to the cabin, meaning to save her father from
his own artlessness and from the snare of a designing widow. She had
remembered to call out a breathless 'Good-night' without turning her
head. They had taken their dismissal together, understanding Helen's
tortured mood. Each man grave and taciturn, like two automatons they
buckled on their spurs, mounted and reined toward the trail.

Then Howard had said merely: 'Come down to the ranch-house, John. I
want to talk with you.' And Carr had nodded and acquiesced.
Thereafter they were silent again for a long time.

The coming of night is a time of vague veilings, of grotesque
transformations, of remoulding and steeping in new dyes.
Matter-of-fact objects, clear-cut during the day, assume fantastic
shapes; a bush may appear a crouching mountain cat; a rock may
masquerade as a mastodon. This is an hour of uncertainties. And
doubtings and questionings and uncertainties were other shadow shapes
thronging the demesnes of two men's souls. Si