he stream, the
thicket of rhododendrons above, the blooming laurels below. Very
stealthily a handsome head pushed out through the leaves.

"'Lindy," a voice whispered.

The girl gave a start, slowly turned her head. She looked at the owner of
the voice from steady, deep-lidded eyes. The pulse in her brown throat
began to beat. One might have guessed her with entire justice a sullen
lass, untutored of life, passionate, and high-spirited, resentful of all
restraint. Hers was such beauty as lies in rich blood beneath dark
coloring, in dusky hair and eyes, in the soft, warm contours of youth.
Already she was slenderly full, an elemental daughter of Eve, primitive
as one of her fur-clad ancestors. No forest fawn could have been more
sensuous or innocent than she.

Again the man's glance swept the landscape cautiously before he moved out
from cover. In the country of the Clantons there was always an open
season on any one of his name.

"What are you doin' here, Dave Roush?" the girl demanded. "Are you
crazy?"

"I'm here because you are, 'Lindy Clanton," he answered promptly. "That's
a right good reason, ain't it?"

The pink splashed into her cheeks like spilled wine.

"You'd better go. If dad saw you--"

He laughed hardily. "There'd be one less Roush--or one less Clanton," he
finished for her.

Dave Roush was a large, well-shouldered man, impressive in spite of his
homespun. If he carried himself with a swagger there was no lack of
boldness in him to back it. His long hair was straight and black and
coarse, a derivative from the Indian strain in his blood.

"Git my note?" he asked.

She nodded sullenly.

'Lindy had met Dave Roush at a dance up on Lonesome where she had no
business to be. At the time she had been visiting a distant cousin in a
cove adjacent to that creek. Some craving for adventure, some instinct of
defiance, had taken her to the frolic where she knew the Roush clan would
be in force. From the first sight of her Dave had wooed her with a
careless bravado that piqued her pride and intrigued her interest. The
girl's imagination translated in terms of romance his insolence and
audacity. Into her starved existence he brought color and emotion.

Did she love him? 'Lindy was not sure. He moved her at times to furious
anger, and again to inarticulate longings she did not understand. For
though she was heritor of a life full-blooded and undisciplined, every
fiber of her was clean and pure. There were