he fellows busy along the new railroad came miles on
Sundays to see."

A bleak smile touched the woman's mouth. "Dad always liked to see me wear
nice clothes. He said it advertised the store." Then her glance fell to
her coarse, wretched skirt, and the contrast struck poignantly.

Tisdale moved the wires back, clearing a space for the bays to pass.
"There was one young engineer," he went on, as though she had not spoken;
"a big, handsome fellow, who came oftener than the rest. Banks thought it
was natural she should favor him. The little man believes yet that when he
was out of the way she married that engineer."

The woman was beyond speech. Tisdale had penetrated the last barrier of
her fortitude. The bitterness, pent so long, fostered in solitude, filled
the vent and surged through. Her shoulders shook, she stumbled a few steps
to the poplar and, throwing up her arm against the bole, buried her face,
sobbing, in her sleeve.

Tisdale looked back across the field. Miss Armitage was holding the team
in readiness at the wicket. "I am going now," he said. "You will have to
watch your goats until I get the horses through. But if you will write
that letter, madam, while I'm at work, I'll be glad to mail it for you."

The woman looked up. A sudden hope transfigured her face. "I wish I dared
to. But he wouldn't know me now; I've changed so. Besides, I don't know
his address."

"That's so." Tisdale met her glance thoughtfully. "But leave it to me. I
think I can get into touch with him when I am back in Seattle."

Miss Armitage watched him as he came swiftly across the field. "Oh," she
cried, when he reached the waiting team, "how did you accomplish it? Are
you a magician?"

Hollis shook his head. "I only tried to play a little on her
heart-strings, to gain time, and struck an unexpected chord. But it's all
right. It's going to do her good."

CHAPTER XI

THE LOOPHOLE

The afternoon sun shone hot in that pocket; the arid slopes reflected the
glare; heat waves lifted; the snow-peak was shut out, and when a puff of
wind found the gap it was a breath from the desert. Miss Armitage, who had
trailed pluckily after Tisdale through the sage-brush and up the steep
face of the bench, rested on the level, while he hurried on to find the
easiest route to the high plateau and the spring. He had left her seated
on a flat rock in the shade of a sentinel pine tree, looking over the vale
to Cerberus and the distant bit of t