s she made her music of
the mountains and as she danced in the grassy yard. Why, he asked himself,
had he not been conscious of his love in those days when she came to him
in the spring glade, and in the days that followed? Why had he not known,
when he painted her portrait in the rose garden? Why had the awakening not
come until that night when he saw her in the company of revelers at the
big house on Fairlands Heights--the night that Mr. Taine died?

It was dark before he reached the canyon gates. In the blackness of the
gorge, with only the light of a narrow strip of stars overhead, he was
forced to ride more slowly. But his confidence that he would find her at
the Ranger Station had increased as he approached the scenes of her
girlhood home. To go to her friends, seemed so inevitably the thing that
she would do. A few miles farther, now, and he would see her. He would
tell her why he had come. He would claim the love that he knew was his.
And so, with a better heart, he permitted his tired horse to slacken the
pace. He even smiled to think of her surprise when she should see him.

It was a little past nine o'clock when the artist saw, through the trees,
the lights in the windows at the Station, and dismounted to open the gate.
Hiding up to the house, he gave the old familiar hail, "Whoo-e-e." The
door opened, and with the flood of light that streamed out came the tall
form of Brian Oakley.

"Hello! Seems to me I ought to know that voice."

The artist laughed nervously. "It's me, all right, Brian--what there is
left of me."

"Aaron King, by all that's holy!" cried the Ranger, coming quickly down
the steps and toward the shadowy horseman. "What's the matter? Anything
wrong with Sibyl or Myra Willard? What brings you up here, this time of
night?"

Aaron King heard the questions with sinking heart. But so certain had he
come to feel that the girl would be at the Station, that he said
mechanically, as he dropped wearily from his horse to grasp his friend's
hand, "I followed Sibyl. How long has she been here?"

Brian Oakley spoke quickly; "Sibyl is not here, Aaron."

The artist caught the Ranger's arm. "Do you mean, Brian, that she has not
been here to-day?"

"She has not been here," returned the officer, coolly.

"Good God!" exclaimed the other, stunned and bewildered by the positive
words. Blindly, he turned toward his horse.

Brian Oakley, stepping forward, put his hand on the artist's shoulder.
"Come, old