ry of nature's splendor. Leaping Creek gamboled
its tortuous way through the heart of a perfect garden.

A veritable Eden thought Stanley Fyles--complete to the last detail.

But his thought was without cynicism. He had no time for cynicism.
Besides, the goal of his career lay yet before him.

His thought drifted further. His whole fate had suddenly become bound
up in that valley. Nor was the fact without a certain irony. For him
it was the valley of destiny. Within its spacious confines lay the
two great factors of life--his life--love and duty. They were
confronting him. They were standing there waiting for him to possess
himself of his victorious hold.

Stanley Fyles felt rather like a ticket-of-leave criminal, instead of
a law officer, as he gazed out from the doorway of the frame hut,
which formed the temporary quarters of the police, far out on the
western reaches of the valley, five miles above the village of Rocky
Springs. He knew he was there to prove himself. His mistakes, or his
bad luck, of the past must be remedied before he could return to his
superiors with a clean sheet. His hands were free, he knew. But in
that freedom he was more surely a prisoner on parole than any man on
his given word. He was pitting himself like the gambler against the
final throw. It was all, or--ruin. To leave the valley with the work
undone, with another mistake to his credit, and his present career
must terminate.

Then there was that other side. That wonderful--other side. The human
nature in him made the valley more surely his destiny than any charges
of his superior officer. The woman was there. The Eve in his Eden.
More than all else the thought of her inspired him to the big effort
of his life.

He was thinking of Kate Seton now as his gaze roamed at will over the
ravishing summer tints. He was thinking wholly of her when his mind
might well have been contemplating the terms of the despatches he had
just written, the orders he had sent to his troopers, even the events
and clues he had obtained on the previous night, pointing the work he
had in hand.

A door opened and closed behind him. He was aware of it, but did not
turn. A voice addressed him. It was the cold voice of Sergeant McBain.

"The men are saddled up, sir."

Fyles glanced around without changing his position.

"The despatches are on the table," he replied, with a sharp
inclination of the head in the direction.

"Any other instructions, sir?"

Fy