softly,

"Come in, mamma."

"We were just going to have lunch when you came, Wanda," her mother
said quietly. "You must come and have a cup of tea."

"Mamma! I can't."

"But you can!" Her mother smiled a little at her and patted the
restless hand she took in her own. "You had a very early breakfast and
you must have a cup of tea."

Together they went back to the dining room.

"Where are Garth and Mr. Hume?" asked Wanda.

"They have gone . . . with the others, dear," Mrs. Leland told her.

The two women sat down in silence. Wanda forced herself to drink half
of her tea and pushed the cup away from her. She got swiftly to her
feet and leaving the room, went out upon the north veranda, where she
saw Julia, the cook, standing at the window, her red hands upon her
broad hips, her eyes even redder than her hands. On the window sill
were half a dozen fresh, hot pies which Julia had made for "the
boys" . . .

Wanda bit her lips and her eyes went whither her mother's had gone,
down the trail along which the men had ridden to the creek.

It seemed a very long time before she saw them. The wagon, with Jim
driving slowly and carefully, climbed over a ridge and wound its way
down into the valley. Her father, Garth, and Sledge Hume, were riding
behind it, abreast and close together. Wayne Shandon farther back was
riding alone, his head down, his hat drawn low over his brows.

At last she could see the faces shaded by the wide brimmed hats. They
were strangely alike in their hard, set expression, the gravity which
told little. These were not, any of them, men given to wearing their
deeper emotions on their sleeves. Her eyes ran to Wayne Shandon's face
first. It was white, the mouth was sterner than she had ever thought
Red Reckless' laughing mouth could be, the eyes were hard and
inscrutable.

From him she looked anxiously at her father, then at Sledge Hume, then
at Garth Conway. And these faces, stern like Wayne's, sent a little
shiver of fear through her.

Her mother went out to meet the wagon, crying quietly. Wanda felt the
tears rush with a hotness like fire into her own eyes, and then she
turned and hurrying out of sight of the slow procession ran down to the
orchard. She was lying there, face down, sobbing like a child, when
she felt a shadow over her, heard a man's spurs jingle, and knew who it
was that had come out to her.

She looked up at him, wondering.

"Wanda," he said very quietly, hi