brief instant, in Lamo, he had held her in
his arms, with her head resting on his shoulder.

That, he felt, had been the real Barbara Morgan. Her manner now--the
constrained and distant pose she had adopted, her suspicions, her
indignation--all those were outward manifestations of the reaction that
had seized her. The real Barbara Morgan was she who had run to him for
protection and she would always be to him as she had appeared then--a
soft, yielding, trembling girl who, at a glance had trusted him enough to
run straight into his arms.

CHAPTER IX

AN UNWELCOME GUEST

It was late afternoon when Barbara and Harlan--the girl still riding a
little in advance of the man--rode their horses out of a stretch of
broken country featured by low, barren hills and ragged draws, and came
to the edge of a vast level of sage and mesquite that stretched southward
an interminable distance.

The sun was low--a flaming red disk that swam in a sea of ever-changing
color between the towering peaks of two mighty mountains miles
westward--and the sky above the big level upon which Barbara and Harlan
rode was a pale amethyst set in the dull gray frame of the dusk that was
rising from the southern and eastern horizons.

Eastward the gray was pierced by the burning, flaming prismatic streaks
that stretched straight from the cleft in the mountains where the sun was
sinking--the sun seemed to be sending floods of new color into the
streaks as he went, deepening those that remained; tinging it all with
harmonious tones--rose and pearl and violet and saffron blending them
with a giant, magic brush--recreating them, making the whole background
of amethyst sky glow like a huge jewel touched by the myriad colors of a
mighty rainbow.

The trail taken by Barbara Morgan ran now, in a southeasterly direction,
and it seemed to Harlan that they were riding straight into the folds of
a curtain of gauze. For a haze was rising into the effulgent expanse of
color, and the sun's rays, striking it, wrought their magic upon it.

Harlan, accustomed to sunsets--with a matter-of-fact attitude toward all
of nature's phenomena--caught himself admiring this one. So intent was he
that he looked around with a start when Purgatory halted, to find that
Barbara had drawn Billy down and was sitting in the saddle close to him,
watching him, her eyes luminous with an emotion that thrilled Harlan
strangely.

"This is the most beautiful place in the world," sh