"What do you mean?"

"When the time comes you'll see! Now he's nearly there--watch!"

The rider was in full view now, driving his horse at a stretching
gallop. There was no doubt about the identity of the man. They could not
make out his face, of course, at that distance, but something in the
careless dash of his seat in the saddle, something about the slender,
erect body cried out almost in words that this was Ronicky Doone. A
moment later the first treetops of the grove brushed across him, and he
was lost from view.

The girl buried her face in her hands, then she looked up. By this time
he must have reached Lefty, and yet there was no sound of shooting. Had
Lefty found discretion the better part of valor and let him go by
unhindered? But, in that case, the swift gallop of the horse would have
borne the rider through the grove by this time.

"What's happened?" she asked of John Mark. "What can have happened down
there?"

"A very simple story," said Mark. "Lefty, as I feared, has been more
chivalrous than wise. He has stepped out into the road and ordered
Ronicky to stop, and Ronicky has stopped. Now he is sitting in his
saddle, looking down to Lefty, and they are holding a parley--very like
two knights of the old days, exchanging compliments before they try to
cut each other's throats."

But, even as he spoke, there was the sound of a gun exploding, and then
a silence.

"One shot--one revolver shot," said John Mark in his deadly calm voice.
"It is as I said. They drew at a signal, and one of them proved far the
faster. It was a dead shot, for only one was needed to end the battle.
One of them is standing, the other lies dead under the shadow of that
grove, my dear. Which is it?"

"Which is it?" asked the girl in a whisper. Then she threw up her hands
with a joyous cry: "Ronicky Doone! Ronicky, Ronicky Doone!"

A horseman was breaking into view through the grove, and now he rode out
into full view below them--unmistakably Ronicky Doone! Even at that
distance he heard the cry, and, throwing up his hand with a shout that
tingled faintly up to them, he spurred straight up the slope toward
them. Ruth Tolliver started forward, but a hand closed over her wrist
with a biting grip and brought her to a sudden halt. She turned to find
John Mark, an automatic hanging loosely in his other hand.

His calm had gone, and in his dead-white face the eyes were rolling and
gleaming, and his set lips trembled. "You were right,