father singing the
"li'l'-ole-hawss" song under the stars of their night camp. There
flashed to her a picture of him making his stand in the stable against
the flood of enemies pouring toward him.

When Roy had finished, she spoke softly. "I'm glad you told me. I
know now the kind of man your father was. He loved you more than his
own life. He was brave and generous and kind. Do you think he would
have nursed a grudge for seventeen years? Do you think he would have
asked you to give up your happiness to carry on a feud that ought never
to have been?"

"No, but--"

"You are going to marry me, not Hal Rutherford. He is a good man now,
however wild he may have been once. But you needn't believe that just
because I say so. Wait and see. Be to him just as much or as little
as you like. He'll understand, and so shall I. My people are proud.
They won't ask more of you than you care to give. All they'll ask is
that you love me--and that's all I ask, dear."

"All you ask now, but later you will be unhappy because there is a gulf
between your father and me. You will try to hide it, but I'll know."

"I'll have to take my chance of that," she told him. "I don't suppose
that life even with the man you love is all happiness. But it is what
I want. It's what I'm not going to let your scruples rob me of."

She spoke with a low-voiced, passionate intensity. The hillgirl was
fighting to hold her lover as a creature of the woods does to protect
its young. So long as she was sure that he loved her, nothing on earth
should come between them. For the moment she was absorbed by the
primitive idea that he belonged to her and she to him. All the vital
young strength in her rose to repel separation.

Roy, yearning to take into his arms this dusky, brown-cheeked
sweetheart of his, became aware that he did not want her to let his
arguments persuade her. The fierce, tender egoism of her love filled
him with exultant pride.

He snatched her to him and held her tight while his lips found her hot
cheeks, her eager eyes, her more than willing mouth.

Chapter XXVII

The Quicksands

Beulah was too perfect of body, too sound of health, not to revel in
such a dawn as swept across the flats next morning. The sun caressed
her throat, her bare head, the uplifted face. As the tender light of
daybreak was in the hills, so there was a lilt in her heart that found
expression in her voice, her buoyant footsteps, and th