cantering down the sandy road; had gone on down stream, passing
even the prowling prospectors, and after a few minutes had returned
and dismounted among the willows above where Blakely lay--Angela whom
poor Natzie believed to be Blakely's sister. Natzie supposed her
looking for her brother, and wondered why she waited. Natzie finally
signaled and pointed when she saw that Angela was going in
disappointment at not finding him. Natzie witnessed Angela's theft of
the net and her laughing ride away. By this time the prospectors had
given up and gone about their business, and then, while she was
wondering how best to restore the property, Lola and Alchisay had come
with the annoying news that the agent was angered and had sent
trailers after her. They were even then only a little way up stream.
The three then made a run for the rocks to the east, and there
remained in hiding. That night Natzie had done her best to find her
way to Blakely with the property, and the rest they knew. The watch
was dropped in the struggle on the _mesa_ when Mullins was stabbed,
the picture-case that morning at the major's quarters.

"Was it Blakely told you all this, sir?" Wren had asked, still
wrong-headed and suspicious.

"No, Wren. It was I told Blakely. All this was given me by Lola's
father, the interpreter, back from Chevlon's Fork only yesterday. I
sent him to try to persuade Natzie and her kinsfolk to return. I have
promised them immunity."

Then Plume and Graham had gone, leaving Wren to brood and ponder, and
this had he been doing two mortal days and nights without definite
result, and now came Janet to bring things to a head. In grim and
ominous silence he listened to her recital, saying never a word until
her final appeal:

"R-r-robert, is our girlie going daft, do you think? She solemnly said
to me--to me--but a minute ago, 'I mean to go to him myself--and thank
him!'"

And solemnly the soldier looked up from his reclining-chair and
studied his sister's amazed and anxious face. Then he took her thin,
white hand between his own thin, brown paws and patted it gently. She
recoiled slowly as she saw contrition, not condemnation, in his
blinking eyes.

"God forgive us all, Janet! It's what I ought to have done days ago."

* * * * *

Another cloudless afternoon had come, and, under the willows at the
edge of the pool, a young girl sat daydreaming, though the day was
nearly done. All in the valley w