s demand was strident. She was roused
from her sense of her own sufferings, her own misery. The newly
awakened emotion had leaped to proportions which threatened to
overwhelm all others.

Nan's eyes came back to her face. There was something almost reckless
in their regard. There was even a suggestion of derision in them, a
suggestion of triumph. But it was not the triumph over a rival. It
was the triumph of one who realizes her conquest over self.

"Everything!" she cried. Then she added almost to herself: "Everything
I can think of, have ever dreamed of in life." Then suddenly her voice
rose to a ring of ecstasy. It was the abundance, the purity of her
love, the certainty of victory over self which inspired it. "Ah, Evie,
don't be rattled with what I'm telling you. Ther' surely is no need.
You want to be mad with me. Guess you needn't to be. Jeff don't know
it. He never will know it. I've never had a hope of him since he met
you. He's always been just yours. I don't guess you need to worry a
thing that way. The worrying's for me. I've loved him since ever I
was a child: since ever he came here. Well, you figure he's in
danger--so it's up to those who love him to do. You see, I--well, I
just love him with my whole soul."

She turned away. The reception of her confession seemed to concern her
not at all.

Out of the darkness loomed her father's great figure. He was leading
Nan's horse as well as his own. The girl leaped into the saddle, and
he passed his own reins up to her.

"I shan't be haf a minit," he said. "I need my guns. The boys are
waitin' by the barn."

He passed into the house. Then Nan observed Elvine. She, too, had
leaped into the saddle. Nor could the girl help being struck by the
manner of her action.

"You're goin' back home?" she cried.

Elvine shook her head resolutely.

"How--then?"

The wife suddenly urged her horse. It came right up to Nan's with an
almost spasmodic jump, driven by a vicious jab of the woman's spurred
heel.

The dark eyes were lit with an angry fire as she leaned forward in the
saddle. Her words came in a voice of passionate jealousy.

"You love him, so you go to him, ready to face anything--for him. Do
you think I don't love him? Do you think I'm not ready to dare for
him--anything? Your love gives you that right. What of mine? Does
mine give me no right? Say, child, your fool conceit runs away with
you. I tell you you don't kn