rage when Starr
Wiley had laid insolent hands upon her in the lane; it was for her and
her alone that he had run the gantlet of El Negrito's forces and dared
the desperate ride.

And she? Immeasurably removed from him now, impenetrably walled in
from his presumptuous gaze by the newly-gained inheritance, there was
yet a golden key which he might find here in this flower-grown
wilderness which would grant him entrance to her world on an equal
footing with all men. She could not have learned to care for him in
their few hours of companionship, but at least no one else held claim
to her. There was still a chance!

It was characteristic of him that, having worked out his problem, he
wasted no thought on futile regret or selfish repining at the fortune
which had smiled on her. It should smile on him, too, and then, and
not till then, he would go to her.

The Pool of the Lost Souls! That was the solution, that the golden key
to the future! That others had been before him in the fruitless search
of weary generations past was of no moment in the fire of his
enthusiasm.

The noontide blaze of heat found him many miles upon an unfamiliar
road, and, heedless of lurking enemies in the undergrowth, he flung
himself down in the shade of a mighty orchid-laden tree, while the
puzzled but equable pinto grazed nearby.

Worn with the emotional conflict through which he had passed, and the
sleepless night preceding the hard-ridden hours, his day-dream faded
into deep slumber and the shadows were slanting across the road when he
awoke with a sudden start. No living thing was in sight save the pinto
tethered close at hand; the road ran level and white and deserted as
far as the eye could see and only the afternoon breeze rustled the
dense foliage above and about him, yet Thode could have sworn that he
was under observation.

He flung the thought from him with a laugh as he picked himself up, but
it persisted in spite of his efforts to exorcise it. Something
unexplained but almost tangible rode at his shoulder on the homeward
way, and he caught himself more than once straining his ears for a
betraying sound behind him. So acute was the sensation of surveillance
that he pulled up abruptly around a sharp turn in the road and
listened, but no following hoof-beats broke the stillness, and mentally
deriding the notion, he cantered on into town.

His mid-day reverie had carried him back over every detail of the
legend Ben Hallock