made claim-jumping look tame. There was a chastened gayety in the
voices, a silvery ripple in the laughter, which told him what Creede
with all his cunning could never guess; they were voices from another
world, a world where Hardy had had trouble and sorrow enough, and
which he had left forever. There was soldier blood in his veins and in
two eventful years he had never weakened; but the suddenness of this
assault stampeded him.

"You better go first, Jeff," he said, turning his horse away, "they
might--"

But Creede was quick to intercept him.

"None o' that, now, pardner," he said, catching his rein. "You're
parlor-broke--go on ahead!"

There was a wild, uneasy stare in his eye, which nevertheless meant
business, and Hardy accepted the rebuke meekly. Perhaps his conscience
was already beginning to get action for the subterfuge and deceit
which he had practised during their year together. He sat still for a
moment, listening to the voices and smiling strangely.

"All right, brother," he said, in his old quiet way, and then,
whirling Chapuli about, he galloped up to the house, sitting him as
straight and resolute as any soldier. But Creede jogged along more
slowly, tucking in his shirt, patting down his hair, and wiping the
sweat from his brow.

At the thud of hoofs a woman's face appeared at the doorway--a face
sweet and innocent, with a broad brow from which the fair hair was
brushed evenly back, and eyes which looked wonderingly out at the
world through polished glasses. It was Lucy Ware, and when Hardy saw
her he leaped lightly from his horse and advanced with hat in
hand--smiling, yet looking beyond her.

"I'm so glad to see you, Miss Lucy," he said, as he took her hand,
"and if we had only known you were coming--"

"Why, Rufus Hardy!" exclaimed the young lady, "do you mean to say you
never received _any_ of my letters?"

At this Creede stared, and in that self-same moment Hardy realized how
the low-down strategy which he had perpetrated upon his employer had
fallen upon his own head a thousandfold. But before he could stammer
his apologies, Kitty Bonnair stood before him--the same Kitty, and
smiling as he had often seen her in his dreams.

She was attired in a stunning outing suit of officer's cloth, tailored
for service, yet bringing out the graceful lines of her figure; and as
Hardy mumbled out his greetings the eyes of Jefferson Creede, so long
denied of womankind, dwelt eagerly upon her beauty.