? Was she ill?

He reproached himself bitterly for not telling her before he left, and
thought with angry impatience of the caution which had kept him silent
because he wanted to be sure of himself.

"Sure of myself!" he repeated it contemptuously. "I should have been
making sure of her! The veriest yokel would have known that he was
completely--desperately in love with her, but I, like the spineless
mollusk that I am, must needs wait a little longer--'to be sure of
myself'!"

To shorten the long hours which must intervene before he could expect a
reply from Crowheart, Van Lennop ordered his saddle horse and rode to
the mine, where a rascally superintendent had stripped the ore shoot and
departed with everything but the machinery. Van Lennop had the tangled
affairs of the mine fairly well straightened out and the new
superintendent was due that day, so the end of his enforced stay was in
sight in a day or two more--three at the most.

As his horse picked its way over the mountain trail the fresh air seemed
to clear his brain of the jumble of doubts and misgivings and replace
them with a growing conviction that something had gone wrong--that all
was not well with Essie Tisdale. His unanswered letter and telegram was
entirely at variance with her sweet good-nature. What if she were
needing him, calling upon him now, this very minute? He urged his horse
unconsciously at the thought. Some accident--he could think of nothing
else--unless a serious illness.

The employees at the mine observed that the young American owner was
singularly inattentive that day to the complaints and grievances to
which heretofore he had lent a patient ear.

His horse was sweating when upon his return he threw the reins to an
idle Mexican in front of his hotel and hurried into the office.

Yes; there was a telegram for Senor Van Lennop--two, in fact.

He tore open the envelope of one with fingers which were awkward in
their haste. The telegram read:

Message addressed to Miss Essie Tisdale received and delivered.

OPERATOR

Van Lennop stood quite still and read it again, even to the
unintelligible date-line. He felt suddenly lifeless, listless, as though
he wanted to sit down. It was all over, then. She had received his
letter and his telegram, and her reply to his offer of his love and
himself was--silence? It was not like her, but there seemed nothing more
for him to do. He could not force himself and his love upon her. She