his buckboard.
"Smallbones," he said, as he mounted to his seat, "you'll come right
along in with me--an' bring that rope."

CHAPTER XXXVII

GOLD

The gray of dawn had passed. Now the rosy light of day was spreading
its fresh beauty across the heavens, and gladdening the warming air,
and painting afresh with generous brush the rolling, open world
below.

Yes, the drab of dawn was past, and, as it was with all Nature about
them, the rosy light of hope brushed lightly the weary hearts of those
who had just passed through the fiery trials of the furnace of
despair.

There were three people only standing beneath the tree, under whose
shadow a man's life so recently was to have been offered a sacrifice
to human justice--two men and a woman. There was something else there,
but life had passed from it, and it lay there waiting, in the calm
patience of the last, long sleep, to return to the clay from which it
sprang.

Eve was kneeling beside the deformed body of her poor brother. Her
tears were falling fast as she bent over the pale upturned face, even
more beautiful still since Death had hugged him to its harsh bosom.
All the woman's passionate love and regrets were pouring out over the
unconscious clay. His cruelties, his weaknesses were forgotten,
brushed away by an infinite love that had no power nor inclination to
judge.

She loved him, and he was dead. He was gone beyond her ken; and for
the moment in her grief she longed to be with him. In the midst of
her tears she prayed--prayed for the poor weak soul, winging its way
in the mysterious Beyond. She asked Him that his sins might be
forgiven. She prayed Him that the great loving forbearance, so readily
yielded to suffering humanity, might be shed upon that weak, benighted
soul. She poured out all the longings of her simple woman's heart in a
passionate prayer that the Great Christ, who had shed His blood for
all sinners, would stretch out His saving hand, and take her brother's
erring spirit once again to His bosom.

The two men stood by in silence. Their heads were bowed in reverence.
They, too, felt something of the woman's grief.

But presently Peter Blunt raised his head. His kindly blue eyes were
full of sympathy. He moved across the intervening grass, and laid a
hand with infinite tenderness upon the woman's shoulder.

"We must take him with us," he said gently.

The woman started, and looked up through her tears.

"Take him? Take him?" sh