ke fire.... He nearly shook
the daylights out of me. 'Slingerland, I want you!' he kept yellin' at
me. An' I said, 'So it 'pears, but what fer?' Then he told me he was
goin' after the gold thet Horn had buried along the old Laramie Trail.
Wal, I took my outfit, an' we rode back into the hills. You remember
them. Wal, we found the gold, easy enough, an' we packed it back to
Roarin' City. Thar Neale sent me off on a train to fetch the gold to
you. An' hyar I I am an' thar's the gold."

Allie stared at the pack, bewildered by Slingerland's story. Suddenly
she sat up and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

"Gold! Horn's gold! But it's not mine! Did Neale send it to me?"

"Every ounce," replied the trapper, soberly. "I reckon it's yours.
Thar was no one else left--an' you recollect what Horn said. Lass, it's
yours--an' I'm goin' to make you keep it."

"How much is there?" queried Allie, with thrills of curiosity. How well
she remembered Horn! He had told her he had no relatives. Indeed, the
gold was hers.

"Wal, Neale an' me couldn't calkilate how much, hevin' nothin' to weigh
the gold. But it's a fortune."

Allie turned from the pack to the earnest face of the trapper. There had
been many critical moments in her life, but never one with the suspense,
the fullness, the inevitableness of this.

"Did Neale send anything else?" she flashed.

"Wal, yes, an' I was comin' to thet," replied Slingerland, as he unlaced
the front of his hunting-frock. Presently he drew forth a little leather
note-book, which he handed to Allie. She took it while looking up at
him. Never had she seen his face radiate such strange emotion. She
divined it to be the supreme happiness inherent in the power to give
happiness.

Allie trembled. She opened the little book. Surely it would contain a
message that would be as sweet as life to dying eyes. She read a name,
written in ink, in a clear script: "Beauty Stanton."

Her pulses ceased to beat, her blood to flow, her heart to throb. All
seemed to freeze within her except her mind. And that leaped fearfully
over the first lines of a letter--then feverishly on to the close--only
to fly back and read again. Then she dropped the book. She hid her face
on Slingerland's breast. She clutched him with frantic hands. She clung
there, her body all held rigid, as if some extraordinary strength or
inspiration or joy had suddenly inhibited weakness.

"Wal, lass, hyar you're takin' it powerful hard--an'