nd she would be free of any association
with it. For all Little Rivers knew that she was given to random walks
and rides. No one would be surprised that she was abroad at this early
hour. It would be ascribed to the nonsense which afflicted the Ewolds,
father and daughter, about sunrises.

Yes, she had been in a nightmare. With the light of day she was seeing
clearly. Had she not warned him about Leddy? Had not she done her part?
Should she submit herself to fruitless humiliation? Go to him in as much
distress as if his existence were her care? If he would not listen to her
yesterday, why should she expect him to listen to her now?

She would return to her garden. Its picture of content and isolation
called her away from the stare of the faces on the other bank. She turned
on her heel abruptly, took two or three spasmodic steps and stopped
suddenly, confronted with another picture--one of imagination--that of
Jack Wingfield lying dead. The recollection of a voice, the voice that
had stopped the approach of Leddy's passion-inflamed face to her own on
the pass, sounded in her ears.

She faced around, drawn by something that will and reason could not
overcome, to see that Jim Galway and Ropey Smith had finished their task
of pacing off the distance. The two combatants were starting for their
stations, their long shadows in the slant of the morning sunlight
travelling over the sand like pursuing spectres. Leddy went with the
quick, firm step which bespoke the keenness of his desire; Jack more
slowly, at a natural gait. His station was so near her that she could
reach him with a dozen steps. And he was whistling--the only sound in a
silence which seemed to stretch as far as the desert--whistling gaily in
apparent unconsciousness that the whole affair was anything but play.
The effect of this was benumbing. It made her muscles go limp. She sank
down for very want of strength to keep erect; and Ignacio, hardly
observed, keeping close to her dropped at her side.

"Ignacio, tell the young man, the one who was our guest last evening,
that I wish to see him!" she gasped.

With flickering, shrewd eyes Ignacio had watched her distress. He craved
the word that should call him to service and was off with a bound. His
rushing, agitated figure was precipitated into a scene hard set as men on
a chess-board in deadly serenity. Leddy and Jack, were already facing
each other.

"Senor! Senor!" Ignacio shouted, as he ran. "Senor Don't C