's blood! That's a
queer thing to stain your beautiful hands. But if you could only see
deeper you'd find a redder color of blood. Heart color, Jane!"

"Oh!... My friend!"

"No, Jane, I'm not one to quit when the game grows hot, no more than
you. This game, though, is new to me, an' I don't know the moves yet,
else I wouldn't have stepped in front of that bullet."

"Have you no desire to hunt the man who fired at you--to find
him--and--and kill him?"

"Well, I reckon I haven't any great hankerin' for that."

"Oh, the wonder of it!... I knew--I prayed--I trusted. Lassiter, I almost
gave--all myself to soften you to Mormons. Thank God, and thank you, my
friend.... But, selfish woman that I am, this is no great test. What's
the life of one of those sneaking cowards to such a man as you? I think
of your great hate toward him who--I think of your life's implacable
purpose. Can it be--"

"Wait!... Listen!" he whispered. "I hear a hoss."

He rose noiselessly, with his ear to the breeze. Suddenly he pulled his
sombrero down over his bandaged head and, swinging his gun-sheaths round
in front, he stepped into the alcove.

"It's a hoss--comin' fast," he added.

Jane's listening ear soon caught a faint, rapid, rhythmic beat of hoofs.
It came from the sage. It gave her a thrill that she was at a loss to
understand. The sound rose stronger, louder. Then came a clear, sharp
difference when the horse passed from the sage trail to the hard-packed
ground of the grove. It became a ringing run--swift in its bell-like
clatterings, yet singular in longer pause than usual between the
hoofbeats of a horse.

"It's Wrangle!... It's Wrangle!" cried Jane Withersteen. "I'd know him
from a million horses!"

Excitement and thrilling expectancy flooded out all Jane Withersteen's
calm. A tight band closed round her breast as she saw the giant sorrel
flit in reddish-brown flashes across the openings in the green. Then
he was pounding down the lane--thundering into the court--crashing his
great iron-shod hoofs on the stone flags. Wrangle it was surely, but
shaggy and wild-eyed, and sage-streaked, with dust-caked lather staining
his flanks. He reared and crashed down and plunged. The rider leaped
off, threw the bridle, and held hard on a lasso looped round Wrangle's
head and neck. Janet's heart sank as she tried to recognize Venters in
the rider. Something familiar struck her in the lofty stature in the
sweep of powerful shoulders. But this