, bright,
entertaining sketches of their travels here and there, with comments
characteristic of herself regarding places and people; his, permeated
with the fresh, exhilarating atmosphere of the mountains, and pervaded
by a vigor and virility which roused Kate's admiration, yet led her to
wonder if this could be the same lover who had won her childish heart in
those idyllic days. Each realized the fact that notwithstanding their
love, notwithstanding their stanch comradeship, at present they were
little more than strangers. Darrell's love for Kate was a reality, but
her personality, so far as he could recall it, was little more than a
dream; each letter revealed some unexpected phase of her character; he
found their correspondence an unfailing source of pleasure, and was
content to await the time of their meeting, confident that he would find
the real woman all and more than the ideal which he fondly cherished as
his Dream-Love. And to Kate, each letter of Darrell's brought more and
more forcibly the conviction that the lover whom she remembered was as a
dream compared with the reality she was to meet some day.

About six months had elapsed when Darrell received, early one morning,
the following telegram from his father, summoning him to Galena:

"Come over on first train. Important."

By the first train he would reach Galena a little before noon; he had
not breakfasted, and had but twenty minutes in which to make it. Calling
a carriage, he went directly to his office, where he left a brief
explanatory note for the clerk, written on the way, then drove with all
possible speed to the depot, arriving on time but without a minute to
spare. He breakfasted on the train, and while running over the morning
paper, his attention was caught by a despatch from Galena to the effect
that one of the leading banks in that city had been entered and the safe
opened and robbed on the preceding night. The robbers, of whom there
were three, had been discovered by the police. A fight had ensued in
which one officer and one of the robbers were killed, the second robber
wounded, while the third had made his escape with most of the plunder.
It was further stated that they were known to belong to the notorious
band of outlaws so long the terror of that region, and it was believed
the wounded man was none other than the leader himself, the murderer of
Harry Whitcomb and the young express clerk, for whom there was a
standing reward of twe