oman in her dead. Only the Sioux watched, and, in the patient,
Indian style, bided its time. "Cattle thieves," "the girl at
Wetmore's"--the words sang themselves in her head like an incantation.
"Cattle thieves" meant her brother, their recognized leader--her brother,
who was dearer to her than the heart in her breast, the eye in her head,
the right hand that held together the shambling, uncertain destiny of her
people. Would he turn to the left, Justice, on a pale horse, hunting her
brother gallowsward? Would he turn towards the right, the impetuous lover
spurring his steed that he might come swiftly to the woman. A pulse in her
bosom rose slowly until her breath was suspended, then fell again; she was
still watching, without an outward quiver, long after he had turned to the
right--and the woman.

VI

A Daughter Of The Desert

Judith knew that the name of the girl whose letter sent Peter Hamilton
vaulting to the saddle was Katherine Colebrooke. There had been a deal of
letter-writing between her and the young cow-puncher of late, of which
perforce, by a singular irony of fate, the postmistress had been the
involuntary instrument. The correspondence had followed a recent hasty
journey to New York, undertaken somewhat unwillingly by Hamilton in the
interest of certain affairs connected with the settlement of an estate.

The precipitancy of this latest turn of events bewildered Judith; but yet
a little while--a matter of weeks and days--and her friendship with Hamilton
had been of that pleasantly indefinite estate situated somewhere on the
borderland of romance, a kingdom where there is no law but the mutual
interest of the wayfarers. Judith and Peter had been pitifully new at the
game of life when the gods vouchsafed them the equivocal blessing of
propinquity. Judith was but lately come from the convent at Santa Fe, and
Hamilton from the university whose honors availed him little in the
trailing of cattle over the range or in the sweat and tumult of the
branding-pen. It was a strange election of opportunity for a man who had
been class poet and had rather conspicuously avoided athletics during his
entire college course. In pursuing fortune westward Hamilton did not lack
for chroniclers who would not have missed a good story for the want of an
authentic dramatic interpretation of his plans. His uncle, said they, who
had put him through college, was disposed to let him sink or swim b