t the country had made her. She
should not be judged for this in measure harsher than Vesta Philbrook
should be judged. The acts of both were controlled by what they
believed to be the right.

Perhaps, and who knows, and why not? So, a train of dreams starting and
blowing from him, like smoke from a censer, perfumed smoke, purging the
place of demons which confuse the lines of men's and women's lives and
set them counter where they should go in amity, warm hand in warm hand,
side by side.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW THICK IS BLOOD?

No sterner figure ever rode the Bad Lands than Jeremiah Lambert appeared
eight days after his escape out of his enemies' hands. The last five
days of his internment he had spent in his own quarters, protesting to
Vesta that he was no longer an invalid, and that further receipt of her
tender ministrations would amount to obtaining a valuable consideration
by false pretense.

This morning as he rode about his duty the scar left by Jim Wilder's
knife in his cheek never had appeared so prominent. It cast over all his
face a shadow of grimness, and imparted to it an aged and seasoned
appearance not warranted by either his experience or his years. Although
he had not carried any superfluous flesh before his night of torture, he
was lighter now by many pounds.

Not a handsome man that day, not much about him to recall the
red-faced, full-blooded agent of the All-in-One who had pushed his
bicycle into the Syndicate camp that night, guided by Taterleg's song.
But there was a look of confidence in his eyes that had not been his in
those days, which he considered now as far distant and embryonic; there
was a certainty in his hand that made him a man in a man's place
anywhere in the extreme exactions of that land.

Vesta was firm in her intention of giving up the ranch and leaving the
Bad Lands as soon as she could sell the cattle. With that program ahead
of him, Lambert was going this morning to look over the herd and
estimate the number of cattle ready for market, that he might place his
order for cars.

He didn't question the wisdom of reducing the herd, for that was good
business; but it hurt him to have Vesta leave there with drooping
feathers, acknowledging to the brutal forces which had opposed the ranch
so long that she was beaten. He would have her go after victory over
them, for it was no place for Vesta. But he would like for her to stay
until he had broken their opposition, and com