rs.

"Ho, you, Joe! You, too, Lalor, an' Ned! Stand by, lads, an' bear a
hand," he cried authoritatively. "Guess I'll pass it out."

Then he stood up, staring down at the stiffened body; and wonder
looked out of his puzzled eyes.

"Gee! if it ain't Wild Bill the gambler, an'--an' he must ha' bin dead
nigh six hours."

CHAPTER XXXII

A MAN'S LOVE

It was with strangely mixed feelings that Scipio drove Minky's old
mule down the shelving trail leading into the secret valley where
stood James' ranch-house. The recollection of his first visit to the
place was a sort of nightmare which clung desperately in the back
cells of memory. The dreadful incidents leading up to it and
surrounding it could never be forgotten. Every detail of his headlong
journey in quest of the man who had wronged him, every detail of his
terrible discomfiture, would cling in his memory so long as he had
life.

But, in spite of memory, in spite of his wrongs, his heart-burnings,
the desolation of the past weeks, his heart rose buoyantly as he came
within sight of the place in which he still persisted in telling
himself that his Jessie was held a prisoner against her will. That was
his nature. No optimism was too big for him. No trouble was so great
that hope could altogether be crushed out of his heart.

He looked out over the splendid valley extending for miles on either
hand of him, and somehow he was glad. Somehow the glorious sunlight,
so softened by the shadowed forest which covered the hillsides, so
gentle beneath the crowding hills which troughed in the bed of waving
grass, sent his simple spirit soaring to heights of anticipatory
delight which, a few days back, had seemed beyond his reach.

At that moment, in spite of all that had gone before, the place was
very, very beautiful to him, life was wonderful, his very existence
was a joy. For was not Jessie waiting for him beyond, in that
ranch-house? Was not she waiting for his coming, that she might return
with him to their home? Was she not presently to be seated beside him
upon the rickety old seat of Minky's buckboard? And his final thought
caused him to glance regretfully down at the frayed cushion, wishing
cordially that he could have afforded her greater comfort.

Ah, well, perhaps she would not mind just for this once. And, after
all, she would be with him, which was the great thing. Wild Bill had
promised him that; and he had every confidence in Wild Bill.

Then he s