overed her eyes with her hands, from out of
Chaos came a cry:

"Gracie, forgive--!"

Slowly she dropped her hands and stared incredulously. What was this
wonder that had come to her in the moment of death? She tottered
unsteadily, swaying to and fro like a wind-tossed leaf. As in a fog she
saw him there with arms extended, waiting to carry her across the dark
ford.

Then, by God's mercy, her brain cleared and she knew.

* * * * *

At the Court of Europe's greatest prince men strive with each other
doing honor to the beautiful wife of the new American Ambassador, Anselm
Brevoort.

"As good as she is beautiful, God bless her!" was Frederick, Lord
Chillingham's enthusiastic eulogy one night when her name was mentioned
at the United, and his comrades silently drank her health standing.

"As pure and as cold as the stars above, God bless her!" sighs the
silver-haired Ambassador, looking wistfully at her where she sits with
her protege, little Eulalie Blount, in her lap, patiently explaining
that the tail makes all the difference between O and Q.

"I love oo, Tonnie!" lisps the little tot kneeling by her little white
bed. And the woman, clasping in her bosom a tiny satin bag containing a
common yellow telegraph blank on which are written a few now
undecipherable words, looks dry-eyed into the night and wonders.

* * * * *

In the marshal's office at Gunnison, over their cigars and a big-bellied
bottle, Red McVey and Ballard are looking reminiscently at a Mauser
hanging on the wall.

"I reckon that were thu best jawb yuh evah done, Lew," says the cowboy
with much conviction.

Ballard, dropping his eyes unaccountably, hesitates long over his
selection of a fresh weed.

"What the hell else was there to do?" he says gruffly. But the recording
angel, looking kindly and indulgently at the honest face, smiles softly
and forgets the pen in his hand.

For a long time the men smoke in a silence more eloquent than words.
Then Ballard shifts the threads in the loom.

"That's a great kid that Ken's got, I hear. Think I'll take a pasear
over there with you when you go back and look at his points."

"That kid!" says Red enthusiastically. "Say, Lew, hush! He's thu biggest
thing on thu range. Why, thu damn leetle cuss actooly kin make fists
already, an' he jes' nacherally pre-empts my ole hawg laig every time I
goes there. Thu han'le is good to cut his teeths o