by an effort could he connect her with the cabin in the
high valley. She was becoming each moment more alien, more aloof, but at
the same time more desirable, like the girls he used to worship in the
church choir.

Speech was difficult with him, and he could only repeat: "It makes me
feel like a rabbit to think I could not keep you from coming here, and
the worst of it is I had nothing to offer as security. All I have in the
world is a couple of horses, a saddle, and a typewriter."

"It really doesn't matter," she replied in hope of easing his mind. "See
how they treat us! They know we're unjustly held and that we shall be
set free to-morrow."

Strange to say, this did not lighten his gloom. "And then--you will go
away," he said, soberly.

"Yes; we cannot remain here."

"And I shall never see you again," he pursued.

Her face betrayed a trace of sympathetic pain. "Don't say that! _Never_
is such a long time."

"And you'll forget us all out here--"

"I shall never forget what you have done, be sure of that," she replied.

Nevertheless, despite the tenderness of her tone and her gratitude
openly expressed, something disconcerting had come into her eyes and
voice. She was more and more the lady and less and less the recluse, and
as she receded and rose to this higher plane, the ranger lost heart,
almost without knowing the cause of it.

At last he turned to Kauffman. "I suppose we'd better go," he said. "You
look tired."

"I am tired," the old man admitted. "Is it far to your hotel?"

"Only a little way."

"Good night," said Helen, extending her hand with a sudden light in her
face which transported the trailer. "We'll meet again in the morning."

He took her hand in his with a clutch in his throat which made reply
difficult; but his glance expressed the adoration which filled his
heart.

* * * * *

Kauffman left the house, walking like a man of seventy. "My bones are
not broken, but they are weary," he said, dejectedly; "I fear I am to be
ill."

"Oh, you'll be all right in the morning," responded the ranger much more
cheerily than he really felt.

"Is it not strange that any reasonable being should accuse my daughter
and me of that monstrous deed?"

"That is because no one knows you. When the towns-folk come to know you
and her they will think differently. That is why I am glad the coroner
is to hold his court here in the town."

"Well, if only we are set free--We