h a captive as though in prison, and guarded by a
warder with a long beard, a carnivorous head, and boots greased with
tallow.

Since they had parted, the day after Li Choo had averted a domestic
"scene" or tragedy, the search had gone on by the Mounted Police-"the
Riders of the Plains"--for the men who had attempted to rob Mazarine,
and to put Orlando out of action by a bullet. Suspicion had been
directed against the McMahons, but Joel Mazarine had declared that it
was not the McMahons who had attacked him, although they were masked.
There was nothing strange in that, because, as the Inspector of the
Riders said "That lot is too fly to do the job themselves; you bet they
paid others to do it."

Orlando had no wish to see the criminals caught or punished. Somehow,
secretly, he looked upon the assault and his wound as a blessing. It had
brought him near to his other self, his mate in the scheme of things.
There was something almost pagan and primitive, something near to the
very beginning of things in what these two felt for each other. It was
as though they really belonged to a world of lovers that "lived before
the god of Love was born."

As Orlando sat watching the sunset, Louise's last words to him, "Oh,
Orlando!" kept ringing in his ears. He thought of what had happened that
very morning before he started for the hills. Soon after daybreak, Li
Choo the Chinaman had come slip-slopping to him at Slow Down Ranch, and
had said to him without any preliminaries, or any reason for his coming:

"I bling Mlissy Mazaline what you like. She cly. What you want me do, I
do. That Mazaline, gloddam! I gloddam Mazaline!"

Orlando had no desire for intrigue, but Li Choo stood there waiting, and
the devotion the Chinaman had shown made him tear a piece of paper from
his pocket-book and write on it the one word "Always." He then folded
the paper up until it was no bigger than a waistcoat button, and gave it
to Li Choo. Also, he offered a five-dollar bill, which Li Choo refused
to take. When he persisted, the Chinaman opened his loose blue jacket
and showed a ten-dollar gold-piece on a string around his neck.

"Mlissy Mazaline glive me that; it all plenty me," he said. "You want me
come, I come. What you say do, I do. I say gloddam Mazaline!"

That scene came to Orlando's mind now, and it agitated him as the
incident itself had not stirred him when it happened. The broncho he was
riding, as though the disturbance in Orlando's br