s in the midst of a most bleak and difficult pass, and
whether she came through or not depended on something not derived from
either her father or her mother. The test of her character was being
made.

"Happily the father is dead, and his exploits fading to a dim legend; but
the mother may live for years to dishearten and corrupt. It is foolish of
the girl to stay, and yet to have her go would leave me and the whole
valley poorer."

He perceived in her a symbol. "She is the new West just as the mother
represents the old, and the law of inheritance holds in her as it holds in
the State. She is a mixture of good and evil, of liberty and license. She
must still draw forward, for a time, the dead weight of her past, just as
the West must bear with and gradually slough off its violent moods."

His pony plodded slowly, and the afternoon was half-spent before he came
in sight of the long, low log-cabin which was the only home he possessed
in all America. For the first time since he built it, the station seemed
lonely and disheartening. "Would any woman, for love of me, come to such a
hearthstone?" he asked himself. "And if she consented to do so, could I be
so selfish as to exact such sacrifice? No, the forest ranger in these
attitudes must be young and heart-free; otherwise his life would be
miserably solitary."

He unsaddled his horse and went about his duties with a leaden pall over
his spirit, a fierce turmoil in his brain. He was no longer single-hearted
in his allegiance to the forest. He could not banish that appealing
girlish face, that trusting gaze. Lee Virginia needed him as he needed
her; and yet--and yet--the people's lands demanded his care, his social
prejudices forbade his marriage.

He was just dishing out his rude supper when the feet of a horse on the
log bridge announced a visitor.

With a feeling of pleasure as well as relief, he rose to greet the
stranger. "Any visitor is welcome this night," he said.

The horseman proved to be his former prisoner, the old man Edwards, who
slipped from his saddle with the never-failing grace of the cow-man, and
came slowly toward the cabin. He smiled wearily as he said: "I'm on your
trail, Mr. Ranger, but I bear no malice. You were doing your duty. Can you
tell me how far it is to Ambro's camp?"

There was something forlorn in the man's attitude, and Cavanagh's heart
softened. "Turn your horse into the corral and come to supper," he
commanded, with Western bluntn