blowing in the
little winds and the shadows of clouds drifted across the green
expanse.... She was numb and far away with misery. She did not care
for anything in all this world. It seemed as if she was detached,
aloof, dead already in body as she was in soul.... And then she heard
the drawling voice of Wylackie Bob--and he was saying something
unspeakable--about her! She listened like one in a trance--then she
struggled up from her chair with tragic long arms extended, and the
cry that rang from her lips was piteous.

"Buck!" it pealed across the stillness of the crowded room, "Buck!--it
ain't so! Never in this world, Buck! I ben true to you as your shadow!
Before God, it ain't true!"

There was a stir throughout the crowd, a breath that was audible.
There were many of the Vigilantes there--a goodly number, all
wondering where Tharon Last was, where Kenset was, where were
the riders from Last's. They had expected, what they did not
know--something, at any rate, for this seemed somehow a test, a
turning point. But there was nothing. They stirred and waited,
like a great force heaving in its bed, blind, sluggish, but
wakening.

And Ellen, chilled by Courtrey's sneering face, the cold disapproval
of Ben Garland's striking mallet, sank back in her chair and covered
her face with her shaking hands.... She heard some more awful
things--then the voice of Dick Burtree beginning soft, low, silver
like running waters. She heard it tell of that far away day of her
marriage--of the years that followed--of Courtrey's love for her--of
her own gentleness, her beauty, "like the tender sunlight of spring on
the snow and the golden sands"--of her service, her loyalty, her love
that had "never faltered nor intruded" that "patient obedience to her
master had but strengthened and made perfect." Of the pitiful thing
that her life had been this man made a wondrous thing, all sweet with
twilights and haloed with service.

He talked until the courtroom was still as death and the Indian women
behind her were rocking in unison of grief. Then she heard questions
again and the gutteral soft voices of her women answering--with love
and devotion in every halting word. Once again the crowd in the room
stirred--and Courtrey's narrow eyes went over it in that cold,
promising glance.

For once in his life Courtrey, the bully, felt a premonitory chill
down his spine--because for the first time that promising glance of
his failed of its effect! O