rker among workers, taking enjoyment in simple pleasures, healthy in
mind and body. He believed in an existence passed in this fashion in the
country, working hard, eating full, drinking deep, sleeping dreamlessly.

But every night, after supper, he saddled his pony and rode over to the
garden of the old Mission. The 'dobe dividing wall on that side, which
once had separated the Mission garden and the Seed ranch, had long since
crumbled away, and the boundary between the two pieces of ground was
marked only by a line of venerable pear trees. Here, under these trees,
he found Angele awaiting him, and there the two would sit through the
hot, still evening, their arms about each other, watching the moon
rise over the foothills, listening to the trickle of the water in the
moss-encrusted fountain in the garden, and the steady croak of the great
frogs that lived in the damp north corner of the enclosure. Through all
one summer the enchantment of that new-found, wonderful love, pure and
untainted, filled the lives of each of them with its sweetness. The
summer passed, the harvest moon came and went. The nights were very
dark. In the deep shade of the pear trees they could no longer see each
other. When they met at the rendezvous, Vanamee found her only with his
groping hands. They did not speak, mere words were useless between them.
Silently as his reaching hands touched her warm body, he took her in his
arms, searching for her lips with his. Then one night the tragedy had
suddenly leaped from out the shadow with the abruptness of an explosion.

It was impossible afterwards to reconstruct the manner of its
occurrence. To Angele's mind--what there was left of it--the matter
always remained a hideous blur, a blot, a vague, terrible confusion.
No doubt they two had been watched; the plan succeeded too well for any
other supposition. One moonless night, Angele, arriving under the
black shadow of the pear trees a little earlier than usual, found the
apparently familiar figure waiting for her. All unsuspecting she gave
herself to the embrace of a strange pair of arms, and Vanamee arriving
but a score of moments later, stumbled over her prostrate body, inert
and unconscious, in the shadow of the overspiring trees.

Who was the Other? Angele was carried to her home on the Seed ranch,
delirious, all but raving, and Vanamee, with knife and revolver ready,
ranged the country-side like a wolf. He was not alone. The whole county
rose, ra