ned to the ranch.

"But of what use is all such planning when destiny wills otherwise? A
trifling incident--the rolling of a horse in the mud--brought everything
about my ears. Yet I believe it is for the best. Nor do I believe your
discovery to have been a mere matter of chance. Probably you were led by
a higher force than mere devotion to duty. Truth must have loyal
servitors such as you if justice is to survive in this world. I am
heartily glad that you persisted in your search. I feel more at ease in
mind and body to-night than I have felt since the day of the tragedy.
Now if you will excuse me a moment, I will make preparations for giving
myself up to the authorities--perhaps to higher authorities than those
at White Lodge."

Sargent stepped into the adjoining room as he finished talking. Helen
did not raise her head from the table. Something in Sargent's final
words roused Lowell's suspicion. He walked quickly into the room and
found Sargent taking a revolver from the drawer of a desk. Lowell
wrested the weapon from his grasp.

"That's the last thing in the world you should do," said the Indian
agent, in a low voice. "There isn't a jury that will convict you. If
it's expiation you seek, do you think that cowardly sort of expiation is
going to bring anything but new unhappiness to _her_ out there?"

"No," said Sargent. "I give you my word this will not be attempted
again."

* * * * *

Space meeting space--plains and sky welded into harmonies of blue and
gray. Cloud shadows racing across billowy uplands, and sagebrush nodding
in a breeze crisp and electric as only a breeze from our upper Western
plateau can be. Distant mountains, with their allurements enhanced by
the filmiest of purple veils. Bird song and the chattering of prairie
dogs from the foreground merely intensifying the great, echoless silence
of the plains.

Lowell and Helen from a ridge--_their_ ridge it was now!--watched the
changes of the panorama. They had dismounted, and their horses were
standing near at hand, reins trailing, and manes rising and falling with
the undulations of the breeze. It was a month after Sargent's confession
and his surrender as the slayer of the recluse of the Greek Letter
Ranch. As Lowell had prophesied, Sargent's acquittal had been prompt.
His story was corroborated by brief testimony from Lowell and Helen.
Citizens crowded about him, after the jury had brought in its verdict of
"Not