se when she ran up to Donald, and asked him to help her into her
saddle. John Aldous rode like one in a dream as they went back into the
valley, for with each minute that passed Joanne seemed more and more to
him like a beautiful bird that had escaped from its prison-cage, and in him
mind and soul were absorbed in the wonder of it and in his own rejoicing.
She was free, and in her freedom she was happy!

Free! It was that thought that pounded steadily in his brain. He forgot
Quade, and Culver Rann, and the gold; he forgot his own danger, his own
work, almost his own existence. Of a sudden the world had become
infinitesimally small for him, and all he could see was the soft shimmer of
Joanne's hair in the sun, the wonder of her face, the marvellous blue of
her eyes--and all he could hear was the sweet thrill of her voice when she
spoke to him or old Donald, and when, now and then, soft laughter trembled
on her lips in the sheer joy of the life that had dawned anew for her this
day.

They stopped for dinner, and then went on over the range and down into the
valley where lay Tete Jaune. And all this time he fought to keep from
flaming in his own face the desire that was like a hot fire within him--the
desire to go to Joanne and tell her that he loved her as he had never
dreamed it possible for love to exist in the whole wide world. He knew that
to surrender to that desire in this hour would be something like sacrilege.
He did not guess that Joanne saw his struggle, that even old MacDonald
mumbled low words in his beard. When they came at last to Blackton's
bungalow he thought that he had kept this thing from her, and he did not
see--and would not have understood if he had seen--the wonderful and
mysterious glow in Joanne's eyes when she kissed Peggy Blackton.

Blackton had come in from the work-end, dust-covered and jubilant.

"I'm glad you folks have returned," he cried, beaming with enthusiasm as he
gripped Aldous by the hand. "The last rock is packed, and to-night we're
going to shake the earth. We're going to blow up Coyote Number
Twenty-seven, and you won't forget the sight as long as you live!"

Not until Joanne had disappeared into the house with Peggy Blackton did
Aldous feel that he had descended firmly upon his feet once more into a
matter-of-fact world. MacDonald was waiting with the horses, and Blackton
was pointing over toward the steel workers, and was saying something about
ten thousand pounds of black po