he kettle. Whatever was detaining her?
Impatient at first, Disston finally grew worried. He ate a little cold
food that he found, and started to walk back to her.

He was well up the first ridge when a sharp report broke the
night-stillness and brought him to an abrupt standstill. It was followed
by another, then three, four--a number of shots in succession. It was
not loud enough for a 30-30. It was the six-shooter! "For close work!"
she had told him tersely.

If he had been in doubt before as to the exact word to apply to his
feelings for Kate, there was no need to hesitate longer. What did it
matter that she did not know how to pour tea gracefully and preside at a
dinner table? By God--he wanted her, and that was all there was to it!

He was breathless when he reached the top of the ridge and his heart was
pounding with the exertion in the high altitude, but he gave a gasp of
relief when he saw her standing in the moonlight with dead and dying
sheep around her.

"What's the matter?" he called, when his breath came back to him
sufficiently.

"Poison. Somebody has scattered little piles of saltpeter all over the
summit. There's no cure for it, so I shot some of them to put them out
of their agony."

In his relief at finding her unharmed, the loss of the sheep seemed of
no moment and he did not realize what it meant to her until she said
with a choke in her voice:

"They knew just where to hit me. I've scrimped and saved and sacrificed
to buy those sheep--"

Her grief sent a flood of tenderness over him. He went to her swiftly,
and taking the six-shooter gently from her hand laid it upon the ground.

"Come here," he said authoritatively, and drew her to him.

She did not resist, and her head dropped to his shoulder in a movement
of disheartened weariness.

"Oh, Hughie--I'm so tired of fighting--so tired--of everything."

He smoothed her hair as he would have soothed a child, and said
decisively--yet with a big tenderness:

"And you shan't do any more of it!"

He felt his heart breaking with the love he felt for her.

"Kiss me--Honey!" he said softly.

She winced at the old sweet term of endearment, then with a sharp intake
of breath she raised her lips to his. He was sure that no other woman's
kiss could so draw the soul out of him. Beth seemed only a shadow--like
someone long dead whose personality is recalled with an effort.

This was love--this was the sort of feeling the Creator intended men and