the light of release.

"Boone," said the girl softly, and he started back with astonishment for
the unaccountable. Then as his gaze swung incredulously upon her, still
wraith-like beyond the shaft of the door's outpouring, he moved to the
side, and she stepped into the room.

"But you're in Louisville," he declared in the low voice of one whose
reason resents the trickery of apparitions, and his pupils burned with
an abnormal brightness. "You're announcing your engagement."

"Not tonight," she reminded him; and then his brain, like his eyes,
having readapted its perception to reality, he slowly nodded his head.

"No. That was--_last_ night," he answered, with a bitter change of tone.
"I'd forgotten.... Things are moving so rapidly, you see."

"I came," she said, with direct gravity, "because some one told me that
you were in danger--of wrecking your life. I came to speak ... for the
thought in time."

While her eyes held his, he returned her gaze with a steady
inscrutability, and the two stood there with a long silence between
them.

Then the man announced in a dead tone:

"It's too late. Come here!"

He led the way to the bedroom door and threw it open with an emotionless
gesture. The girl flinched as she looked in and succeeded in stifling a
scream only by bringing both her hands swiftly to her lips. But Boone
took a step over to the cot where Victor McCalloway had slept and lifted
the sheet from something that lay there.

"That's 'Little' Jim Bartleton--or was," he added slowly. "I folded his
hands there on his breast such a little while ago that they're hardly
cold yet." He paused a moment; then the flat quality went out of his
bearing and his voice, though no louder than before, became transformed.
It held the throbbing intensity of distant drums beating for action and
battle.

"He was trying to serve me by watching the enemies that plotted my
murder. He was riding my horse--and was mistaken for me. You see, you
come too late."

"But, Boone--when--did this--?"

"About an hour ago," the man interrupted her. "He fell just about where
you dismounted, drilled through by a bullet hired by Saul Fulton and Tom
Carr. I found him there--and brought him in."

"Do--do his people know?"

"Not yet. Only you and I know it--yet." Again the voice leaped
tumultuously: "But soon his people are coming here--his people and mine.
They are coming for my counsel, and, by God, it's ready for them!"

"And you'll tell t