e cabin and lay sleepless and tranced, watching
the stars, till late that night.

All the next day he did scarcely anything but watch and look after his
horses and watch and drag the hours out and dream despite his dread.
But no one visited him. The cabin was left to him that day.

It had been a hot day, with great thunderhead, black and creamy white
clouds rolling down from the canyon country. No rain had fallen at the
Ford, though storms near by had cooled the air. At sunset Slone saw a
rainbow bending down, ruddy and gold, connecting the purple of cloud
with the purple of horizon.

Out beyond the valley the clouds were broken, showing rifts of blue,
and they rolled low, burying the heads of the monuments, creating a
wild and strange spectacle. Twilight followed, and appeared to rise to
meet the darkening clouds. And at last the gold on the shafts faded;
the monuments faded; and the valley grew dark.

Slone took advantage of the hour before moonrise to steal down into the
grove, there to wait for Lucy. She came so quickly he scarcely felt
that he waited at all; and then the time spent with her, sweet,
fleeting, precious, left him stronger to wait for her again, to hold
himself in, to cease his brooding, to learn faith in something deeper
than he could fathom.

The next day he tried to work, but found idle waiting made the time fly
swifter because in it he could dream. In the dark of the rustling
cottonwoods he met Lucy, as eager to see him as he was to see her,
tender, loving, remorseful--a hundred sweet and bewildering things all
so new, so unbelievable to Slone.

That night he learned that Bostil had started for Durango with some of
his riders. This trip surprised Slone and relieved him likewise, for
Durango was over two hundred miles distant, and a journey there even
for the hard riders was a matter of days.

"He left no orders for me," Lucy said, "except to behave myself.... Is
this behaving?" she whispered, and nestled close to Slone, audacious,
tormenting as she had been before this dark cloud of trouble. "But he
left orders for Holley to ride with me and look after me. Isn't that
funny? Poor old Holley! He hates to doublecross Dad, he says."

"I'm glad Holley's to look after you," replied Slone. "Yesterday I saw
you tearin' down into the sage on Sarch. I wondered what you'd do,
Lucy, if Cordts or that loon Creech should get hold of you?"

"I'd fight!"

"But, child, that's nonsense. You couldn't figh