he outer room.

Then Crozier called with a great, cheery voice--what Mona used to call
his tally-ho voice. Mrs. Tynan appeared, smiling. She knew at a glance
what had happened. It was so interesting that she could even forgive
Mona.

"Where's Kitty?" asked Crozier, almost boisterously.

"She has gone for a ride with John Sibley," answered Mrs. Tynan.

"Look, there she is!" said Mona, laying a hand on Crozier's arm, and
pointing with the other out over the prairie.

Crozier looked out towards the northwestern horizon, and in the distance
was a woman riding as hard as her horse could go, with a man galloping
hard after her. It seemed as though they were riding into the sunset.

"She's riding the horse you won that race with years ago when you first
came here, Mr. Crozier," said Mrs. Tynan. "John Sibley bought it from
Mr. Brennan."

Mona did not see the look which came into Crozier's face as, with one
hand shading his eyes and the other grasping the banknotes which were to
start him in life again, independent and self-respecting, he watched the
girl riding on and on, ever ahead of the man.

It was at that moment the Young Doctor entered the room, and he
distracted Mona's attention for a moment. Going forward to him Mona
shook him warmly by the hand. Then she went up to Mrs. Tynan and kissed
her.

"I would like to kiss your daughter too, Mrs. Tynan," Mona said....
"What are you looking at so hard, Shiel?" she presently added to her
husband.

He did not turn to her. His eyes were still shaded by his hand.

"That horse goes well yet," he said in a low voice. "As good as ever--as
good as ever."

"He loves horses so," remarked Mona, as though she could tell Mrs. Tynan
and the Young Doctor anything about Shiel Crozier which they did not
know.

"Kitty rides well, doesn't she?" asked Mrs. Tynan of Crozier.

"What a pair--girl and horse!" Crozier exclaimed.
"Thoroughbred--absolutely thoroughbred!"

Kitty had ridden away with her heart's secret, her very own, as she
thought: but Shiel Crozier knew--the man that mattered knew.

EPILOGUE

Golden, all golden, save where there was a fringe of trees at a
watercourse; save where a garden, like a spot of emerald, made a button
on the royal garment wrapped across the breast of the prairie. Above,
making for the trees of the foothills far away, a golden eagle floated,
a prairie-hen sped affrighted from some invisible thing; and in the far
distance a railway train