nt by.

Then at last Garth Conway rode again to the Leland ranch house and
brought tidings of Wayne. He had tired of New York, but he was not yet
coming West. Instead he was sailing for Europe, and would probably go
down into Africa for some hunting.

"Where does he get the money?" demanded Martin Leland sharply.

Garth's short laugh was rather full answer. But he elaborated it into
words:

"I am to rush a forced sale of cattle," he said, lifting his shoulders.
"He wants two thousand dollars in a hurry. God knows what for. He is
going to fritter his property away just as he fritters away everything!"

Leland sprang up from his chair, his two fists clenched and lifted high
above his head, his eyes blazing.

"Martin! Martin!" cried Mrs. Leland.

He dropped his hands to his sides and turned away, the words on his
tongue checked.

"Dear God," Wanda prayed within her soul. "Let him be a man. Let him
come back soon. Before every one believes he did that thing,
before . . . they send for him!"

CHAPTER IV

THE WHITE HUNTRESS

Two months, filled with the clean breath of outdoors, had softened the
memory of that stark tragedy upon which Wanda had come at the edge of
Echo Creek. Not forgotten, never to be wiped clean from the memory,
still the keen horror was dulled, the harsh details blurred, the whole
dreadful picture softened under the web which the spider of time weaves
over an old canvas.

Again life was glad and good and golden. Again youth was eager and
hopeful and merry. The death which had come and changed the world had
gone, leaving the world as it has always been.

Wanda and Gypsy and Shep saw much of one another. They were all very
happy, perhaps because they were very busy. Full of enthusiasm that
was at once gay and serious Wanda had thrown herself into her "Work"
immediately upon returning home in the early springtime. Before the
tragic event which for the time had driven her life out of its groove
she had already won for herself the title, bestowed merrily by Wayne
Shandon, of the "White Huntress." Her "work," to which she gave up so
many hours of each day, was purposeful, steadily pursued, and brought
her a vast pleasure. The game she hunted was the squirrel tossing his
grey body through the branches of pine and cedar, the quail calling
from the hillsides, the cottontail scampering through the underbrush,
the yellowhammer, the woodpecker, the wide winged butterflies sailing