ssed the beautiful head of fair, wavy
hair. Then, without waiting for the astonished sister's reply, she
moved across to the door.

"Some day," she said, pausing with her hand on the catch, and, turning
back, smiling gently through the gathering tears, "Bill will tell you
it all. He knows it all--everything. Just now he is bound to secrecy,
but he will be released from that some day, and then--he will tell
you."

CHAPTER XL

THE DAWN

A girl was leaning against a solitary post, a hundred yards or so from
where the descent into the valley of Leaping Creek began. All about
her stretched the vast plains of grass, which seemed to know no end.
The wide flat trail, so bare and hard, passed her by, and vanished
into the valley behind her. In the opposite direction, at long
intervals, it showed up in sections as it passed over the rises in the
prairie ocean, until the limits of her vision were reached.

Not a single object stood out to relieve the monotony of that desert
of grass. Any dwelling of man within reach of the searching eye must
have been hidden in the troughs between the crests of summer grass. It
was all so wide, so vast, so dreadful in its unspeakable solitude.

Helen's eyes were upon the last section of the trail, away to the
northwest, just as far as her bright eyes could see. She was
searching, searching. Her heart was beating with a great and buoyant
hope, and every little detail she beheld in that far-off distance she
searched, and sought to mould into the figure of the horseman she was
waiting for.

The sun was hot. It's relentless rays, freed from the wealth of shade
in the valley below, beat down upon the parching land with a fiery
intensity which must have been insupportable to unaccustomed human
life. But to Helen it meant nothing, nothing but the fact that its
brilliant light was in keeping with every beat of the warm, thrilling
heart within her bosom.

He was on the road. Bill--her Big Brother Bill. He was on the road,
and must be somewhere near now, for the telegram in her hand warned
her that he hoped to reach the valley by sundown.

Four long weeks since the dreadful day. Four long weeks in which her
aching heart and weary thought had left her in wretched unhappiness.
Four weeks of doubt and trouble, in which her sister seemed to have
shut herself out of her life, leaving her to face all her doubts and
fears alone.

Bill was away on his dead brother's affairs. Loyal Bill, seekin