elements of adventure and surprise in the plan which
pleased him. He had not heard from her for nearly a year, and that
troubled him a little; perhaps she had moved away or was married. The
thought of losing her made him shiver with sudden doubt of the good
sense of his action. Anyhow, he would soon know.

The clerk of the principal hotel was sleeping on a cot behind the
counter, and Mose considerately decided not to wake him. Taking a seat
by the window, he resumed his thinking, while the morning light
infiltrated the sky. He was only twenty-two years of age, but in his own
thought he had left boyhood far behind. As a matter of fact he looked to
be five years older than he was. His face was set in lines indicating
resolution and daring, his drooping mustache hid the boyish curves of
his lips, and he carried himself with a singular grace, self-confident,
decisive, but not assertive. The swing of his shoulders had charm, and
he walked well. The cowboy's painful hobble had not yet been fastened
upon him.

Sitting there waiting the dawn, his face became tired, somber, almost
haggard, with self-accusing thought. He was not yet a cattle king, he
was, in fact, still a cowboy. The time had gone by when a hired hand
could easily acquire a bunch of cattle and start in for himself--and
yet, though he had little beyond his saddle and a couple of horses, he
was in Marmion to look upon the face of the girl who had helped him to
keep "square" and clean in a land where dishonesty and vice were common
as sage brush. He had sworn never to set foot in Rock River again, and
no one but Jack knew of his visit to Marmion.

Now that he was actually in the town where Mary lived he was puzzled to
know how to proceed. He had wit enough to know that in Marmion a girl
could not receive visits from a strange young man and escape the fire of
infuriate gossip. He feared to expose her to such comment, and yet,
having traveled six hundred miles to see her, he was not to be deterred
by any other considerations, especially by any affecting himself.

He knew something, but not all, of the evil fame his name conveyed to
the citizens in his native state. As "Harry Excell, _alias_ Black Mose,"
he had figured in the great newspapers of Chicago, and Denver, and
Omaha. Imaginative and secretly admiring young reporters had heaped
alliterative words together to characterize his daring, his skill as a
marksman and horseman, and had also darkly hinted of his par