ed sharply, "there is man's work cut out for me! I have
twenty-five thousand dollars and more to raise in a very short time. I
have my reply to make to men who have used me as a fool! I have the
water that the Dry Valley needs. I can go on with the thing which they
have tried to do, I can whip them at their own game, playing mine open
with the cards on the table. I can refuse to be the toad under the
stone; I can make my fight to have my rights. Against opposition that
has been underhanded I can offer opposition that is a man's answer to a
challenge. It is they, not I, who began the trouble. Had Martin
Leland come to me and asked for a water right, I should have given it
to him freely as you know. Why, the woman who came to you last night--"

"Miss Hazleton?" she said very quietly, though the girl's heart was
beating hard as she waited for his answer.

"Helga Strawn," he answered bluntly. "Hume's cousin."

Her smile, a little wistful but with a quick flash of gladness,
surprised him. And he did not understand when she rose swiftly and
came to him and put her arms round his neck.

"I am afraid that I have been naughty, Wayne," she whispered. "No,
I'll tell you some other time. Tell me about her."

He told her Helga's vague plan, showed her the chance for him with
Ettinger, Norfolk and the stragglers lined up with him.

"I love you, Wanda," he said suddenly at the end. "So much that what
you want done is the thing that I must do. But you must see very
clearly that the time has come when I must play the man's part or the
weakling's."

"First you are going to be very sure? Sure that papa has done this?"

"Yes, dear."

"Then," she said, lifting her face to his, her eyes shining, "if you
find it true I want you to do the man's part, Wayne. You knew that I
would, didn't you, Wayne?"

"Yes," he whispered. "God bless you, yes."

"And, Wayne, dear--"

"Yes?"

"Do you think that Helga Strawn is very beautiful?"

Whereupon he laughed happily at her, and despite the cloud in their sky
which had grown suddenly bigger and blacker so that the shadow of it
lay across their lives, they were very gay together.

CHAPTER XX

HUME PLAYS A TRUMP

Before Wanda and Wayne had finished making merry over their little
luncheon in the cave, each striving bravely to look at the future
honestly and unafraid, to look upon the present contentedly, an event
had happened that was already shaping their live