turned
out across the fields to meet the rising sun. And it seemed to his
fancies, set a-tingle in the early dawn freshness, that the rising sun,
ancient symbol of youth and vigor and hope with triumph's wings, was
coming to meet him.

At this period of the day, especially when he rides and is alone and
the forests thicken all about him, man is prone to confidence. It had
been a simple matter, so he looked upon it now, to have discovered the
truth of the substituted bills last night; as simple a matter had been
his winning at seven-and-a-half or his whipping big Joe Woods or his
recovery of the lost legacy.

Blenham, or rather an agent of Blenham, had killed his horse; what
then? His destiny had stepped forward; Terry had come; he had whizzed
back to the ranch in her car and on time.

What if the ranch were mortgaged and to the hardest man in seven
counties? What though his grandfather had obviously fallen supine
before the old man's tempting sin, which is avarice, and was bound to
break him? Was fate not playing him for her favorite?

To Steve Packard, riding to meet the sun and to keep his promise to the
lumber boss, the world just now was an exceedingly bright and lovely
place; in this hour of a leaping optimism he could even picture Terry
Temple in a companionably laughing mood.

So early did he take to saddle that the fag end of the dawn was still
sweet in the air when he passed under the great limbs of the stragglers
of the forests clothing his eastern hill-slopes. He noted how between
the widely separated boles the grass was thick and rich and untrampled;
reserved against the time of need. There was no stock here yet.

He passed on, swung into the little-used trail which brought him first
to the McKittrick cabin where a double-barrelled shot-gun six months
ago had brought Bill Royce his blindness; then to the lumber-camp a
mile further on. Both were on the bank of Packard's Creek; the flume
constructed by Joe Woods's men followed the line of the stream.

The new sun in his eyes, Steve drew his hat low down on his forehead
and looked curiously about him. The timberjacks had come only
recently; so much was obvious. They had come to stay; that was as
plainly to be seen. Rough slabs of green timber, still drying and
twisting and splitting as it did so, had been knocked together rudely
to make a long, low building where cook and cookstove and a two-plank
table indicated both kitchen and dining-room