d it is
not you that will break the promise. It is he that shall give it back to
you."

For the time she felt his faith, and her face glowed, but her courage
left her when the "King," who had been ahead with the candidate, dropped
back towards the rear and joined them.

"King" Plummer, too, had begun that return journey with feelings of
exhilaration. Everything in the trip from Crow's Wing appealed to him,
because it was so thoroughly in consonance with his early life in the
mountains. The adventure in Queen City had stirred his blood, and around
him were familiar things. He, too, wished that an organized band of
bandits would come, because in his younger days he had helped to hunt
down some of the worst men in the mountains, and the old fighting blood
mounted as high as ever in his veins.

He had seen that Sylvia was entirely recovered from the alarms of the
night at Queen City, and then, because he felt that it was his duty, and
because there was a keen zest in it, too, he rode on ahead with the
candidate, to whom he pointed out dim blue peaks that he knew, and to
whom he laid down the proposition that those mountains were full of
minerals, and would one day prove a source of illimitable wealth to the
nation.

The crispness of the morning, the vast expanse of mountain, and the
feeling of deep, full life made the "King's" blood tingle. His years of
hardship, danger, and joy--and he had enjoyed his life greatly--swept
before him, and he laughed under his breath; life was still very good.
After a while the thought of Sylvia came to him, and he smiled again,
because Sylvia was truly good to look upon. He rode back towards her,
and then he received a blow--a blow square in the face, and dealt
heavily.

"King" Plummer's was not a mind trained to look upon the more delicate
shades of life--he dealt rather with the obvious; but when he saw Harley
and Sylvia he knew. Mrs. Grayson's warning, which at first he had only
half accepted, had come true, and it had come quickly. His instant
impulse was that of the primitive man to raise his fist and strike down
this foolish, this presumptuous youth who had dared to cross the path of
him, the King of the Mountains; but he did not raise it, because "King"
Plummer was a gentleman; instead, he strove to conceal the fact that he
was breathing hard and deep, and he spoke to them in a tone that he
sought to render careless, but which really had an unnatural sound.
Sylvia gave him a gl