sed
me--helped me--and all the while she was false to me--false as a
hell-cat!"

"How?" queried the almost invisible man, and his voice was charged with
stern demand.

"All the time she was promised to another man--and that man my enemy."

Here his frenzy flared forth in a torrent of words.

"Then--then I went mad. My brain was scarred and numb. I lost all sense
of pity--all fear of law--all respect for woman. I only knew my
wrongs--my despair--my hate. I watched, I waited, I found them
together--"

"And then? What did you do then?" demanded the stranger, rising from his
seat with sudden energy, his voice deep, insistent, masterful. "Tell me
what you did?"

The miner's wild voice died to a hesitant whisper. "I--I fled."

"But before that--before you fled?"

"What is it to you?" asked the hermit, gazing with scared eyes at the
man who towered above him like the demon of retribution. "Who are you?"

"I am the avenger!" answered the other. "The man you hated was my
brother. The woman you killed was his wife."

The fugitive fell upon his knees with a cry like that of one being
strangled.

Out of the darkness a red flame darted, and the crouching man fell to
the floor, a crumpled, bloody heap.

For a long time the executioner stood above the body, waiting, listening
from the shadow to the faint receding breath-strokes of his victim. When
all was still he restored his weapon to its sheath and stepped over the
threshold into the keen and pleasant night.

As he closed the door behind him the stranger raised his eyes to
Solidor, whose sovereign, cloud-like crest swayed among the stars.

"Now I shall rest," he said, with solemn satisfaction.

THE TRAIL TRAMP

_--mounted wanderer, horseman of the restless heart, still
rides from place to place, contemptuous of gold, carrying in
his parfleche all the vanishing traditions of the West._

V

THE TRAIL TRAMP

KELLEY AFOOT

I

Kelley was in off the range and in profound disgust with himself, for
after serving honorably as line-rider and later as cow-boss for ten
years or more, he had ridden over to Keno to meet an old comrade. Just
how it happened he couldn't tell, but he woke one morning without a
dollar and, what was worse, incredibly worse, without horse or saddle!
Even his revolver was gone.

In brief, Tall Ed, for the first time in his life, was set afoot, and
this, you must understand, is a most direful disaster in c