is in danger of falling sick himself. I must
go back to them; but, believe me, I will come just as soon as my duties
will let me. You understand me, don't you?"

Her voice was fainter as she said: "Yes, but I--it seems hard to wait."

"I know. Your voice has helped me. I was in a black mood when I came here.
I'm going back now to do my work, and then I will come to you. Good-bye."

Strangely beautiful and very subtle was the vibrant stir of that wire as
it conveyed back to his ear the little sigh with which she made answer to
his plea. He took his way upward in a mood which was meditative but no
longer bitter.

XI

SHADOWS ON THE MIST

The decision which Cavanagh made between love and duty distinguished the
officer from the man, the soldier from the civilian. He did not hesitate
to act, and yet he suffered a mental conflict as he rode back toward the
scene of that inhuman sacrifice on the altar of greed. His heart went out
to Lee Virginia in longing. Her appealing voice still lay in his ear with
an effect like the touch of her soft lips, and his flagging horse suffered
from the unconscious pressure of his haste.

"It will be hours before any part of the sheriff's posse can reach the
falls, even though they take to the swiftest motors, and then other long
hours must intervene before I can ride down to her. Yes, at least a day
and a night must drag their slow course before I can hope to be of service
to her," and the thought drew a groan of anxiety from him. At such moments
of mental stress the trail is a torture and the mountain-side an
inexorable barrier.

Half-way to the hills he was intercepted by an old man who was at work on
an irrigating ditch beside the road. He seemed very nervous and very
inquisitive, and as he questioned the ranger his eyes were like those of a
dog that fears his master's hand. Ross wondered about this afterward, but
at the moment his mind was busy with the significance of this patient
toiler with a spade. He was a prophetic figure in the most picturesque and
sterile land of the stockman. "Here within twenty miles of this peaceful
fruit-grower," he said, "is the crowning infamy of the free-booting
cowboy. My God, what a nation we are!"

He wondered, as he rode on, whether the papers of the State would make a
jest of _this_ deed. "Will this be made the theme for caustic comment in
the Eastern press for a day, and then be forgotten?"

As his hot blood cooled he lost faith in e