loped when Daley began to read aloud.
We all heard. The instant I understood it was a letter intended for
you I took the book. No more was read. We were all crowded round
Daley--curious, you know. There were visitors on my train--and your
enemy Lee. I'm sorry--but, no matter. You see it couldn't be helped....
That's all...."

Neale was conscious of calamity. It lay in his hand. "Poor old Casey!"
he murmured. Then he remembered. Stanton dying! What had happened? He
could not trust himself to read that message before Lodge, and, bowing,
he left the room. But he had to grope his way through the lobby, so dim
had become his sight. By the time he reached the street he had lost
his self-control. Something burnt his hand. It was the little
leather note-book. He had not the nerve to open it. What had been the
implication in General Lodge's strange words?

He gazed with awe at the tooth-marks on the little book. How had Casey
come by anything of Beauty Stanton's? Could it be true that she was
dead?

Then again he was accosted in the street. A heavy hand, a deep voice
arrested his progress. His eyes, sweeping up from the path, saw fringed
and beaded buckskin, a stalwart form, a bronzed and bearded face, and
keen, gray eyes warm with the light of gladness. He was gripped in hands
of iron.

"Son! hyar you air--an' it's the savin' of me!" exclaimed a deep,
familiar voice.

"Slingerland!" cried Neale, and he grasped his old friend as a drowning
man at an anchor-rope. "My God! What will happen next?... Oh, I'm glad
to find you!... All these years! Slingerland, I'm in trouble!"

"Son, I reckon I know," replied the other.

Neale shivered. Why did men look at him so? This old trapper had too
much simplicity, too big a heart, to hide his pity.

"Come! Somewhere--out of the crowd!" cried Neale, dragging at
Slingerland. "Don't talk. Don't tell me anything. Wait!... I've a letter
here--that's going to be hell!"

Neale stumbled along out of the crowded street, he did not know where,
and with death in his soul he opened Beauty Stanton's book. And he read:

You called me that horrible name. You struck me. You've killed me. I
lie here dying. Oh, Neale! I'm dying--and I loved you. I came to you
to prove it. If you had not been so blind--so stupid! My prayer is that
some one will see this I'm writing--and take it to you.

Ancliffe brought your sweetheart, Allie Lee, to me--to hide her from
Durade. He told me to find you and then he d