er! He is wild because his nature is inherited from his father;
it's in his blood, he's young and he has grown up with the far out
places. But he is not bad! He is not the kind of man to do a thing
like this. What do men call him, men who know him and what he is?
They don't call him Coward, they don't call him Cheat, they don't call
him mean or dishonest or ungenerous! They call him Reckless, Red
Reckless, and they love him! Oh, mamma, can't you see that it is
impossible . . ."

Mrs. Leland rose to her feet, her face grown suddenly pinched and white.

"I don't know," she said with a sigh.

"You believe it too!" cried the girl. "You think that Wayne Shandon
killed his own brother!"

A delicate flush stained her mother's cheeks.

"Wanda, child, you mustn't say that," she almost whispered. "I don't
believe it. I won't believe it. And if I did . . . Wanda, I'd
remember the man his father was, the gentleman, the true-hearted
gentleman, and I should say that I did not believe."

Then, turning quickly so that her wondering daughter could not see the
eyes that were blurred with a mist of tears, she left the room.

When she had gone Wanda snatched up the trunk key from her table and
thrust it quickly into her bosom. Then she sat down again on the edge
of her bed and stared out toward the orchard where the sunlight lay
bright and warm upon the apple blossoms . . . and saw only the quiet
body by Echo Creek, that and the face of the man people called Red
Reckless.

CHAPTER III

SUSPICION

Why had her mother come to her in such a way? Why had she been so
quick to see what people would say? Did she believe that Wayne Shandon
had killed Arthur; was she afraid that Wanda might have found something
that would incriminate him; and did she want to warn her of what the
inevitable result of such a disclosure would be?

And she had found something! She had known from the first sight of it,
half hidden by Shep's eager pays, that it was Wayne Shandon's. He had
shown it to her only last week.

"I am going to teach you to shoot as I shoot," he had laughed, bringing
the revolver out of his pocket. "Then I am going to give it to you.
And then you are going to make me a pretty bow and give me a pretty
smile and say, 'Thank you, Red,' as you did when I chastised your first
suitor! Remember, Wanda?"

"Only I don't call you 'Red' any more," she had laughed back at him.
"We're grown up now, you know, and Wayne i