bearded, longhaired, unkempt man,
who wore ragged clothes patched with pieces of skin, and boots that
showed bare legs and feet--this dusty, dark, and wild rider could not
possibly be Venters.

"Whoa, Wrangle, old boy! Come down. Easy now. So--so--so. You re home,
old boy, and presently you can have a drink of water you'll remember."

In the voice Jane knew the rider to be Venters. He tied Wrangle to the
hitching-rack and turned to the court.

"Oh, Bern!... You wild man!" she exclaimed.

"Jane--Jane, it's good to see you! Hello, Lassiter! Yes, it's Venters."

Like rough iron his hard hand crushed Jane's. In it she felt the
difference she saw in him. Wild, rugged, unshorn--yet how splendid! He
had gone away a boy--he had returned a man. He appeared taller, wider of
shoulder, deeper-chested, more powerfully built. But was that only her
fancy--he had always been a young giant--was the change one of spirit?
He might have been absent for years, proven by fire and steel, grown
like Lassiter, strong and cool and sure. His eyes--were they keener,
more flashing than before?--met hers with clear, frank, warm regard, in
which perplexity was not, nor discontent, nor pain.

"Look at me long as you like," he said, with a laugh. "I'm not much to
look at. And, Jane, neither you nor Lassiter, can brag. You're paler
than I ever saw you. Lassiter, here, he wears a bloody bandage under
his hat. That reminds me. Some one took a flying shot at me down in the
sage. It made Wrangle run some.... Well, perhaps you've more to tell me
than I've got to tell you."

Briefly, in few words, Jane outlined the circumstances of her undoing in
the weeks of his absence.

Under his beard and bronze she saw his face whiten in terrible wrath.

"Lassiter--what held you back?"

No time in the long period of fiery moments and sudden shocks had Jane
Withersteen ever beheld Lassiter as calm and serene and cool as then.

"Jane had gloom enough without my addin' to it by shootin' up the
village," he said.

As strange as Lassiter's coolness was Venters's curious, intent scrutiny
of them both, and under it Jane felt a flaming tide wave from bosom to
temples.

"Well--you're right," he said, with slow pause. "It surprises me a
little, that's all."

Jane sensed then a slight alteration in Venters, and what it was, in her
own confusion, she could not tell. It had always been her intention
to acquaint him with the deceit she had fallen to in her zeal to mov