strength of the elemental
forces that had surrounded her, primitive passion and hate and love, as
they were in woman in the beginning.

"My God!" Shefford cried aloud with his spirit when all that was red in
him sprang again into a flame of hell. That was what had been wrong with
him last night. He could kill this stealthy night-rider, and now, face
to face with Fay, who had never been so beautiful and wonderful as in
this hour when she made love the only and the sacred thing of life, now
he had it in him to kill. Yet, murder--even to kill a brute--that was
not for John Shefford, not the way for him to save a woman. Reason
and wisdom still fought the passion in him. If he could but cling to
them--have them with him in the dark and contending hour!

She leaned against him now, exhausted, her soul in her eyes, and they
saw only him. Shefford was all but powerless to resist the longing to
take her into his arms, to hold her to his heart, to let himself go. Did
not her love give her to him? Shefford gazed helplessly at the stricken
Joe Lake, at the somber Indian, as if from them he expected help.

"I know him now," said Fay, breaking the silence with startling
suddenness.

"What!"

"I've seen him in the light. I flashed a candle in his face. I saw it. I
know him now. He was there at Stonebridge with us, and I never knew him.
But I know him now. His name is--"

"For God's sake don't tell me who he is!" implored Shefford.

Ignorance was Shefford's safeguard against himself. To make a name of
this heretofore intangible man, to give him an identity apart from the
crowd, to be able to recognize him--that for Shefford would be fatal.

"Fay--tell me--no more," he said, brokenly. "I love you and I will give
you my life. Trust me. I swear I'll save you."

"Will you take me away soon?"

"Yes."

She appeared satisfied with that and dropped her hands and moved back
from him. A light flitted over her white face, and her eyes grew
dark and humid, losing their fire in changing, shadowing thought of
submission, of trust, of hope.

"I can lead you to Surprise Valley," she said. "I feel the way. It's
there!" And she pointed to the west.

"Fay, we'll go--soon. I must plan. I'll see you to-night. Then we'll
talk. Run home now, before some of the women see you here."

She said good-by and started away under the cedars, out into the
open where her hair shone like gold in the sunlight, and she took the
stepping-stones with her o