e the furthest and darkest reaches of this wild new world. It
touched the mystery of the burial mound; it lifted the misty winding
sheet spread by the swamp; it raised the pall laid along the horizon by
the sable tops of the cypress trees; it reached almost to the darkness
hanging over Duff's Fort--that awful and mysterious blackness--which the
noonday sun could never wholly remove.

But the girl's gaze was not following the moonbeams. Looking neither to
the one side nor the other, she gave a single glance ahead. This was
only to see that she was going straight toward Anvil Rock by the
shortest road. And the one look was enough for she knew that the great
shadowy mass glooming in the dark distance must be what she sought. And
then bending forward and low over the pony's neck, she sent him onward
by an unconscious movement of her own body. She had known how to ride
almost as long as she had known how to walk--the one was an easy and as
natural as the other. Instinctively she now bent still lower, and still
farther forward over the pony's neck, as a boy does in riding a race;
for she also was riding a great race, and for the greatest of stakes.
She did not stop to think how great the stake was; she had not yet
realized that it was the life of the man she loved; she had not yet
had time to face the truth, and to know that she loved Paul Colbert. She
only realized that she must reach Anvil Rock before Philip Alston could
pass it on his way to Cedar House, or turn into another path. Raising
her head, she flashed another look into the dark distance, where the
goal was and grew sick with fear, seeing how far off it was. And then
rallying, she began to use her voice as well as the reins, to urge the
pony to greater speed.

[Illustration: "For she also was riding a great race."]

"That's it! Good boy. But faster--faster!"

Thus crying she silently prayed that Philip Alston might be within
hearing of the sound of her voice. She never doubted that he would come
at her first cry. It never once crossed her mind that he could hesitate
to do what she wished in this. He had never in all her life refused her
anything, and she knew of no reason to fear refusal now. The only fear
that she felt was the dread of reaching Anvil Rock too late. She tried
to still the quivering of her nerves by reminding herself that he nearly
always came to Cedar House at this hour, if he had not been there
earlier in the day. But she could not help remembe