e he was powerless to
keep altogether under. "You don't know what all your words mean to me.
You don't know how glad they make me feel. Do you know, when I was
riding up to you just now I was looking for a sign of suspicion in
your eyes? If I'd seen it--if I'd seen it, I can't tell you what it
would have meant to me. I almost thought I did see it, but now I know
I was wrong. There's just about two folks for whose opinion I care in
this village, you and Peter. Well, now I feel I can face the rest. For
the present I'm an unconvicted cattle rustler to them. There's not
much difference between that and a rawhide rope with them. But there's
just a bit of difference, and to that bit I'm going to hold good and
tight."

Eve's face suddenly went an ashy gray.

"But, Jim, they'd never--never hang you." Her voice was low. There was
a thrill of horror in it which made the man's heart glow. He felt that
her horror was for his safety, and not for the fact of the hanging.
Then the feeling swiftly passed. He remembered in time that she was
the wife of another.

"They would," he said decidedly. "They'd hang me, or anybody else,
with very little more proof than they've already got. You don't
realize what cattle-duffing means to these folks. It's worse than
murder. But," he went on, struggling to lighten his manner, "they're
not going to hang me, if I know it. It's up to me to run this rustler
to earth. I'm going to. That's what I'm out for. After I'd made up my
mind to hunt the devil down McLagan informed me, not in so many words,
of course, that to do so was the only way to convince folks of my
innocence--himself included. So I'm going to hunt him down, if it
takes months, and costs me my last cent. And when I find him"--his
eyes lit with a terrible purpose--"may God have mercy on his soul, for
I won't."

But the girl had no response for him. Her enthusiastic belief in his
innocence found no further expression. When he pronounced his
determination her eyes were wide and staring, and as he ceased
speaking she turned them toward the distant hills, lest he should
witness the terror she could no longer hide. A shudder passed over her
slight figure. She was struggling with herself, with that haunting
fear that was ever dogging her. The thought of the rawhide rope had
set it shuddering through her nerve centres afresh in a way that
bathed her in a cold perspiration.

For a moment she stood battling thus. Then, in the midst of the
stru