Interlude 186
XVIII The Challenge of the Brute 193
XIX Smythe's Last Budget 202
XX "The Trail Held True" 215
XXI In the Hollow of the Storm 228
XXII The Narrow Passage 238
XXIII The Miracle 252
XXIV Haig's Argument 264
XXV Diana 278
XXVI The Snow 288
XXVII The Voice in the Hurricane 302
XXVIII The Man Who Did Not Forget 316
XXIX Ghosts 330
XXX The Lamp Relighted 344
XXXI Sangre De Cristo 359

THE HEART OF THUNDER MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER I

THE FORBIDDEN PASTURE

She sat hunched up in the middle of the silent pasture, where the
tall, thin grass ran ripening before the breeze in waves the hue of
burnished bronze. Her cow pony grazed greedily a few yards away,
lifting his head now and then to gaze inquiringly at her, and then
returning to his gluttony with a satisfied snort, commendatory of this
long rest. The girl had removed her small sombrero to adjust the
masses of tawny hair that had become disordered in her morning ride;
and the breeze now played with it, and the sun sought out its glints
of gold. She was fair, of a curiously rich complexion with soft golden
tints beneath the skin, as if the rusty gold in her hair was just the
outcropping of what ran in solution in her veins. And there was a
certain air about her that contrasted strangely with the scene upon
which she now gazed intently, with her head bent forward, and her
hands clasped round her upthrust knees.

It was a little valley she had come upon by chance, snugly tucked away
among the hills. Below the bronze-colored slope there were lush
meadows of a brilliant green, and a shallow, swift stream that
flashed over black bowlders and white sand; beyond the meadows lay
more shining pastures rising to pale-green aspen groves and then to
dark-green pines; and above all these the foothills climbed swiftly to
th