you're sure you don't think badly of me because--because I'm
Peter's sister?"

There was a smiling, half-tearful look in her eyes--those expressive
eyes which, but a moment before, had burnt with a vengeful fire--as she
asked the question. After all her nature was wondrously simple.

"Why should I, dear?" he replied, bending and kissing the gauntleted
hands which rested so lovingly in his. "My life has scarcely been a
Garden of Eden before the Fall. And I don't suppose my future, even
should I escape the laws of man, is likely to be most creditable. Your
past is your own--I have no right nor wish to criticise. Henceforth we
are united in a common cause. Our hand is turned against one whose power
in this part of the country is almost absolute. When we have wrested his
property from him, to the uttermost farthing, we will cry quits--"

"And on the day that sees Lablache's downfall, Bill, I will become your
wife."

There was a pause. Then Bill drew her towards him and they sealed the
compact with one long embrace. They were roused to the matters of the
moment by another whinny from Golden Eagle, who was chafing at his
forced imprisonment.

The two stood back from one another, hand in hand, and smiled as they
listened to the tuneful plaint. Then the man unfolded a wonderful plan
to this girl whom he loved. Her willing ears drank in the details like
one whose heart is set with a great purpose. They also talked of their
love in their own practical way. There was little display of sentiment.
They understood without that. Their future was not alluring, unless
something of the man's strange plan appealed to the wild nature of the
prairie which, by association, has somehow become affiliated with
theirs. In that quiet, evening-lit valley these two people arranged to
set aside the laws of man and deal out justice as they understood it. An
eye for an eye--a tooth for a tooth; fortune favoring, a cent, per cent,
interest in each case. The laws of the prairie, in those days always
uncertain, were more often governed by human passions than the calm
equity of unbiased jurymen. And who shall say that their idea of justice
was wrong? Two "wrongs," it has been said, do not make one "right." But
surely it is not a human policy when smote upon one cheek to turn the
other for a similar chastisement.

"Then we leave Golden Eagle where he is," said Jacky, as she remounted
her horse and they prepared to return home.

"Yes. I will see to