a black gulf bridged.

Her father was waiting when she finally turned to him--waiting, his chin
on his chest, his face crimson with shame.

"Ruth, girl--you ain't goin' to judge me too harsh, are you?" he begged.
Once more she yielded to the pathetic appeal in his eyes. She ran to him
again, holding him tightly to her. A cool gust swept in through the open
doorway--the night wind, laden with mystery. But the girl laughed and
snuggled closer to the man; and the man laughed hoarsely, vibrantly, in
a voice that threatened to break.

CHAPTER XIII

THE INVISIBLE MENACE

At the close of the second day the big trail herd halted at the edge of
the vast level over which it had come. The herd had been driven forty
miles. Cattle, men, and horses had passed through a country which was
familiar to them; a country featured by long grama grass, greasewood,
and cactus plants.

There was no timber on the plains. The gray of the grama grass and the
bare stretches of alkali shone white in the glare of a sun that swam in
a cloudless sky of deepest azure. Except for the men, the cattle, the
horses, and the two slow-moving, awkward-looking canvas-covered wagons,
there had been no evidence of life on the great plain. In a silence
unbroken save by the clashing of horns, the bleating and bawling of the
cattle, the ceaseless creaking of the wagons, and the low voices of the
men, the cavalcade moved eastward.

The wind that swept over the plains was chill. It carried a tang that
penetrated; that caused the men, especially in the early morning, to
turn up the collars of their woolen shirts as they rode; a chill that
brought a profane protest from the tawny-haired giant who had disclosed
to Lawler the whereabouts of Joe Hamlin that night in the Circle L
bunkhouse.

The first camp had been made on the Wolf--at a shallow about five miles
north of the Two Bar, Hamlin's ranch. And with the clear, sparkling,
icy water of the river on his face, and glistening beads of it on his
colorless eyelashes, the giant had growled to several of his brother
cowboys, who were likewise performing their ablutions at the river:

"This damn wind is worse'n a Kansas regular. You lean ag'in' it an' it
freezes you; you turn your back to it an' you've got to go to clawin'
icicles out of your back. Why in hell can't they have a wind that's got
some sense to it?"

"It ain't c-cold, Shorty," jibed a slender puncher with a saturnine eye
and a large, mobile m