the road far beyond, but she would go
alone and hide her pain rather than surrender. That would be Vesta
Philbrook's way.

Myrtle, the negro woman, came in with chicken broth. Vesta made a light
for him to sup by, protesting when he would sit up to help himself, the
spoon impalpable in his numb fingers, still swollen and purple from the
long constriction of his bonds.

Next morning Vesta came in arrayed in her riding habit, her sombrero on,
as she had appeared the first time he saw her. Only she was so much
lovelier now, with the light of friendship and tender concern in her
face, that he was gladdened by her presence in the door. It was as of a
sudden burst of music, or the voice of someone for whom the heart is
sick.

He was perfectly fine, he told her, although he was as sore as a burn.
In about two days he would be in the saddle again; she didn't need to
bother about riding fence, it would be all right, he knew. His
declaration didn't carry assurance. He could see that by the changing
cast of her face, as sensitive as still water to a breathing wind.

She was wearing her pistol, and appeared very competent with it on her
hip, and very high-bred and above that station of contention and strife.
He was troubled not a little at sight of her thus prepared to take up
the battles which she had renounced and surrendered into his hands only
yesterday. She must have read it in his eyes.

"I'm only going to watch the fence and repair it to keep the cattle in
if they cut it," she said. "I'll not take the offensive, even if I see
her--them cutting it; I'll only act on the defensive, in any case. I
promise you that, Duke."

She left him with that promise, before he could commend her on the
wisdom of her resolution, or set her right on the matter of Grace Kerr.
From the way Vesta spoke, a man would think she believed he had some
tender feeling for that wild girl, and the idea of it was so
preposterous that he felt his face grow hot.

He was uneasy for Vesta that day, in spite of her promise to avoid
trouble, and fretted a good deal over his incapacitated state. His
shoulder burned where Tom Hargus' knife had scraped the bone, his
wounded back was stiff.

Without this bodily suffering he would have been miserable, for he had
the sweat of his humiliation to wallow in, the black cloud of his
contemplated vengeance across his mind in ever-deepening shadow. On his
day of reckoning he cogitated long, planning how he was to bri