hundred yards between the
combatants, a safe distance for both of them if they would keep it. But
Vesta had no intention of making it a long-range duel. She pulled her
horse up and reloaded her gun, then spurred ahead, holding her fire.

Lambert saw all this as he swept down between them like an eagle, old
Whetstone hardly touching the ground. He cut the line between them not
fifty feet from the Kerr girl's position, as Vesta galloped up.

He held up his hand in an appeal for peace between them. Vesta charged
up to him as he shifted to keep in the line of their fire, coming as if
she would ride him down and go on to make an end of that chapter of the
long-growing feud. The Kerr girl waited, her pistol hand crossed on the
other, with the deliberate coolness of one who had no fear of the
outcome.

Vesta waved him aside, her face white as ash, and attempted to dash by.
He caught her rein and whirled her horse sharply, bringing her face to
face with him, her revolver lifted not a yard from his breast.

For a moment Lambert read in her eyes an intention that made his heart
contract. He held his breath, waiting for the shot. A moment; the film
of deadly passion that obscured her eyes like a smoke cleared, the
threatening gun faltered, drooped, was lowered. He twisted in his saddle
and commanded the Kerr girl with a swing of the arm to go.

She started her horse in a bound, and again the soul-obscuring curtain
of murderous hate fell over Vesta's eyes. She lifted her gun as Lambert,
with a quick movement, clasped her wrist.

"For God's sake, Vesta, keep your soul clean!" he said.

His voice was vibrant with a deep earnestness that made him as solemn as
a priest. She stared at him with widening eyes, something in his manner
and voice that struck to reason through the insulation of her anger. Her
fingers relaxed on the weapon; she surrendered it into his hand.

A little while she sat staring after the fleeing girl, held by what
thoughts he could not guess. Presently the rider whisked behind a point
of sage-dotted hill and was gone. Vesta lifted her hands slowly and
pressed them to her eyes, shivering as if struck by a chill. Twice or
thrice this convulsive shudder shook her. She bowed her head a little,
the sound of a sob behind her pressing hands.

Lambert put her pistol back into the holster which dangled on her thigh
from the cartridge-studded belt round her pliant, slender waist.

"Let me take you home, Vesta," he s