y of her life, he listened with
ever-increasing interest. An orphan at an early age, she had since
lived in the home of her Uncle Amos. Everything had gone well until
the last year, when her uncle brought Rayder to their home and
insisted that she should regard him as a suitor for her hand. Rayder,
old and grey, had dyed his whiskers and tried to appear boyish. His
intentions were well enough--he would give her all she would ask that
money could purchase--but she could not love the man and could never
think of becoming his wife. Amos, her uncle, was a man of avarice and
greed. He insisted that it was a duty she owed him for his fatherly
care in bringing her up. He dwelt on the advantages it would be to
him in his old age and that it would be only right for her to help him
in this way. He had appealed to her generous nature and sought to make
her believe this sacrifice on her part would be just and right. Amos'
wife had taken the same view of the matter and urged that the wedding
should be at an early date. Annie, alone in the world, had no one to
whom she could go for counsel. Some of the coarse women of the mining
camp who came to their home thought her the most fortunate of girls to
have a suitor as rich as Rayder, and ridiculed the idea of her
refusing to accept the greatest opportunity of her life. Some of their
husbands were rough, uncouth men, who cared nothing for the luxuries
of a home, spent most of their money and time drinking and gambling at
the Lone Tree, and they gauged conditions as they were with
themselves. They were honest-hearted women of the frontier who
believed they were doing the girl a kindness. It was not through
bravery that she was cool and collected, yesterday, in the presence
of death from the lions, she told him, but because she had almost made
up her mind that she did not care. Death had lost its terrors in the
contemplation of impending fate.

He did not tell her of the burden of his heart. He did not feel that
he dared to ask for sympathy. At that hour he would have given ten
years of his life to undo his marriage with Mary Greenwater by the
ancient custom of the Swiftest Horse. He knew the Indian woman and
knew that she intended to kill him and yet he felt helpless,
powerless. He did tell the girl beside him that he, too, was alone in
the world and hoped to merit the love of a good woman and that his
every act in life should go to prove his sincerity. And so, amid the
wild scenes of th