already. The
man you've known as Green is Buck Stratton himself."

Lynch's lids flashed up. "Yuh--lie!" he murmured. "Stratton's--dead!"

"Nothing like it," retorted the sheriff. "The papers got it wrong. He was
only badly wounded. This fellow here is Buck Stratton, and he can prove
it."

A spasm quivered over Lynch's face. He tried to speak, but only a faint
gurgle came from his blood-flecked lips. Too late Hardenberg, catching an
angry glance from Buck, realized and regretted his impulsive indiscretion.
For Mary Thorne, turning slowly like a person in a dream, stared into the
face of the man beside her, lips quivering and eyes full of a great
horror.

"You!" she faltered, in a pitiful, small voice. "You--"

Stratton held her closer, a troubled tenderness sweeping the anger from
his eyes.

"But--but, Mary--" he stammered--"what difference does--"

Suddenly her nerves snapped under the culminating strain of the past few
hours.

"Difference!" she cried hysterically. "Difference!" Her heart lay like a
cold, dead thing within her; she felt utterly miserable and alone.
"You--My father! Oh, God!"

She made a weak effort to escape from his embrace. Then, abruptly, her
slim, girlish figure grew limp, her head fell back against Stratton's
shoulder, her eyes closed.

CHAPTER XXXVI

TWO TRAILS CONVERGE

Mrs. Archer sat alone in the ranch-house living-room, doing absolutely
nothing. As a matter of fact, she had little use for those minor solaces
of knitting or crocheting which soothe the waking hours of so many elderly
women. More than once, indeed, she had been heard to state with mild
emphasis that when she was no longer able to entertain herself with human
nature, or, at the worst, with an interesting book, it would be high time
to retire into a nunnery, or its modern equivalent.

Sitting there beside one of the sunny southern windows, her small, faintly
wrinkled hands lying reposefully in her lap, she made a dainty, attractive
picture of age which was yet not old. Her hair was frankly gray, but
luxuriant and crisply waving. No one would have mistaken the soft, faded
pink of her complexion, well preserved though it was, for that of a young
woman. But her eyes, bright, eager, humorous, changing with every mood,
were full of the fire of eternal youth.

Just now there was a thoughtful retrospection in their clear depths.
Occasionally she glanced interestedly out of the window, or turned her
head questio