he edge of the shelf.

"It will be down in a minute more; look and see," he said, in that soft
tone that veiled a fiend's purpose. Then he turned away, and glancing
out over the valley he made a gesture of defiance at the cantonment. His
back was toward me. The red sun was on the horizon bar, half out of
sight.

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil." The arm of the All Father was round about me then, and I put my
trust in Him.

As Jean turned to face the west the glow of the sinking ball of fire
dazzled his eyes a moment. But that was long enough, for in that instant
a step fell on the rock beside me. A leap of lightning swiftness put a
form between my eyes and the dying day; the flash of a knife--Jean Le
Claire's short sharp knife--glittered here; my bonds were cut in a
twinkling; O'mie, red-headed Irish O'mie, lifted me to my feet, and I
was free.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE CRY OF WOMANHOOD

The women have no voice to speak, but none can check your pen--
Turn for a moment from your strife and plead their cause, O men!

--KIPLING.

After all, it was not Tillhurst, but Jim Conlow, who had a Topeka story
to tell when he went back to Springvale; and it was Lettie who edited
and published her brother's story. Lettie had taken on a new degree of
social importance with her elevation to a clerkship in Judson's store,
and she was quick to take advantage of it.

Tillhurst, when he found his case, like my own, was hopeless with
Marjie, preferred that Rachel's name and mine should not be linked
together. Also a degree of intimacy had developed suddenly between Tell
Mapleson and the young teacher. The latter had nothing to add when
Lettie enlarged on Rachel's preference for me and my devotion to her
while the Nineteenth Kansas was mobilizing in Topeka.

"And everybody knows," Lettie would declare, "that she's got the money,
and Phil will never marry a poor girl. No, sir! No Baronet's going to do
that."

Although it was only Lettie who said it, yet the impression went about
and fixed itself somehow, that I had given myself over to a life of
luxury. I, who at this very time was starving of hunger and almost
perishing of cold in a bleak wind-swept land. And to me for all this,
there were neither riches nor glory, nor love.

Springvale was very gay that winter. Two young lawyers from Michigan,
fresh from the universities, set up a new firm over Judson's store where
my fat