rhaps, the
first time in his life that all the blood had left it, and it showed the
power of this new and sudden emotion. "King" Plummer, in a flash, saw
many things. The finger that lay upon the trigger trembled, and then,
with a cry of fear, this man who feared no other man threw his pistol to
the earth.

"My God, Sylvia!" he exclaimed. "What do you think I am?"

"Not a murderer!"

"No, I am not; but I came very near to being one."'

He looked at the two, in each other's arms as it were, and turned away,
leaving the pistol upon the ground. "King" Plummer had seen enough for
one day.

They watched him until the broad back passed over a swell and was lost.
Then Sylvia, blushing, remembered, and took her arms from Harley's neck.

"You have saved my life," said Harley.

"I do not think that he would have fired."

"You have saved it, anyhow. Now it is yours, and you must take it. He
cannot claim you after this."

The blush became brilliant.

"He has not given me up. He has not said so."

"But he will give you up. He shall. You are mine now. Come!"

He took her unresisting hand in his, and again they walked side by side,
so close that the strong wind once more brushed the little ringlet
against his cheek.

It is a peculiarity of Grafton that the low swells around it, rolling
away towards the mountains, look just alike everywhere. One has to be a
resident, and an old-timer at that, to be able to tell one from another.
Harley and Sylvia, hand-in-hand, had little thought of such things as
these, nor were they anxious to reach Grafton quickly; yet the time when
they must be there would come, and Harley at last interrupted a
pleasanter occupation by exclaiming:

"Why, where is Grafton? We should have reached it long ago!"

Sylvia saw only the low swells, rolling away, one after the other; there
was no glimpse of a house, no smoke on the horizon to tell where the
village had hid itself so suddenly. Around them were the low ridges, and
afar the circle of blue mountains. Save for themselves, it seemed a lone
and desolate world. Sylvia became white; she knew their situation better
than Harley.

"We have lost the town! We mistook the direction!" she said.

"We can easily find it again; it must be there."

He pointed in the direction in which he thought Grafton lay, and
continued:

"It will merely make our walk back to town the longer, and that is what
I like."

But she, who had lived her life on the plains