ddled in a chair beside an open window she decided a battle. She
saw the forces of reason and justice rout the hosts of hatred and crime,
and she got up finally, her face pallid, but resolute, secure in the
knowledge that she had decided wisely. She pitied Corrigan. Had it been
within her power she would have prevented the tragedy. And yet she could
not blame these people. They were playing the game honestly, and their
patience had been sadly strained by one player who had persisted in
breaking the rules. He had been swept away by his peers, which was as fair
a way as any law--any human law--could deal with him. In her own East he
would have paid the same penalty. The method would have been more refined,
to be sure; there would have been a long legal squabble, with its tedious
delays, but in the end Corrigan would have paid. There was a retributive
justice for all those who infracted the rules of the game. It had found
Corrigan.

At three o'clock in the afternoon she washed her face. The cool water
refreshed her, and with reviving spirits she combed her hair, brushed the
dust from her clothing, and looked into a mirror. There were dark hollows
under her eyes, a haunting, dreading expression in them. For she could not
help thinking about what had happened there--down the street where the
Vigilantes had gone.

She dropped listlessly into another chair beside a window, this time
facing the station. She saw her horse, hitched to the rail at the station
platform, where she had left it that morning. _That_ seemed to have been
days ago! A period of aching calm had succeeded the tumult of the morning.
The street was soundless, deserted. Those men who had played leading parts
in the tragedy were not now visible. She would have deserted the town too,
had it not been for her father. The tragedy had unnerved him, and she must
stay with him until he recovered. She had asked the porter about him, and
the latter had reported that he seemed to be asleep.

A breeze carried a whisper to her as she sat at the window:

"Where's 'Firebrand' now?" said a voice.

"Sleepin'. The clerk in the _Castle_ says he's makin' up for lost time."

She did not bother to try to see the owners of the voices; her gaze was on
the plains, far and vast; and the sky, clear, with a pearly shimmer that
dazzled her. She closed her eyes. She could not have told how long she
slept. She awoke to the light touch of the porter, and she saw Trevison
standing in the