a tree, sat staring thoughtfully
across the billowing country before them; Howard smoked a cigarette,
stood a moment looking curiously down at the weary figure of the girl,
and then strode off to the next shade for his own siesta.

'Rode pretty well all night,' he explained half apologetically to
Longstreet as he went. 'And haven't walked this much since last time.'

Between two and three they started on again. It grew cooler;
constantly as they went forward the earth showed growing signs of
fertility and, here and there, of moisture guarded and treasured under
a shaggy coat of herbage. Within the first hour they glimpsed a number
of scattered cattle and mules; once Helen cried out at the discovery of
a small herd of deer browsing in a shaded draw. Then came a low
divide; upon its crest was an outcropping of rock. Here Howard waited
until his two companions came up with him; from here he pointed,
sweeping his arm widely from north to east and south of east.

'The Last Ridge country, yonder,' he said.

They saw it against the north-eastern horizon. From the base of the
hills on which they stood a broad valley spread out generously.
Marking the valley's northern boundary some half-dozen miles away,
thrown up against the sky like a bulwark, was a long broken ridge like
a wall of cliff, an embankment stained the many colours of the
south-west; red it looked in streaks and yellow and orange and even
lavender and pale elusive green. It swept in a broad, irregular curve
about the further level lands; it was carved and notched along its
crest into strange shapes, here thrusting upward in a single
needle-like tower, there offering to the clear sky a growth like a
monster toadstool, again notched into saw-tooth edges.

'And here,' said Howard, his voice eloquent of his pride of ownership,
'my valley lands. From Last Ridge to the hills across yonder, from
those hills as far as you can see to the south, mile after mile of it,
it's mine, by the Lord! That is,' he amended with a slow smile under
Helen's amazed eyes, 'when I get it all paid for! And there,' he
continued, pointing this time to something white showing through the
green of a grove upon a meadow land far off toward the southern rim of
the valley, 'there is home. You'll know the way; I'm only twelve or
fifteen miles from the Ridge, and so, you see, we're next-door
neighbours.'

To Helen, as she gazed whither his finger led, came a strange,
unaccustomed th