wed. Then she shook her shoulders,
and said with a scornful quietness, "Larry would not have a hand in it to
save his life. There is not a semblance of truth in that story, Chris."

Allonby glanced up in astonishment, but he was youthful, and that Hetty
could have more than a casual interest in her old companion appeared
improbable to him.

"It is quite a long time since you and Larry were on good terms, and no
doubt he has changed," he said. "Any way, his friends are going to try
giant powder on the bridge, and if we are fortunate Cheyne will get the
whole of them, and Larry, too. Now, we'll change the topic, since it does
not seem to please you."

He changed it several times, but his companions, though they sat and even
smiled now and then, heard very few of his remarks.

"I'm going," he said at last, reproachfully. "I am sorry if I have bored
you, but it is really quite difficult to talk to people who are thinking
about another thing. It seems to me you are both in love with somebody,
and it very clearly isn't me."

He moved away, and for a moment Hetty and Miss Schuyler did not look at
one another. Then Hetty stood up.

"I should have screamed if he had stayed any longer," she said. "The thing
is just too horrible--but it is quite certain Larry does not know. I have
got to tell him somehow. Think, Flo."

XXIII

HETTY'S AVOWAL

The dusk Hetty had anxiously waited for was creeping across the prairie
when she and Miss Schuyler pulled up their horses in the gloom of the
birches where the trail wound down through the Cedar bluff. The weather
had grown milder and great clouds rolled across the strip of sky between
the branches overhead, while the narrow track amidst the whitened trunks
was covered with loose snow. There was no frost, and Miss Schuyler felt
unpleasantly clammy as she patted her horse, which moved restively now and
then, and shook off the melting snow that dripped upon her; but Hetty
seemed to notice nothing. She sat motionless in her saddle with the
moisture glistening on her furs, and the thin white steam from the
spume-flecked beast floating about her, staring up the trail, and when she
turned and glanced over her shoulder her face showed white and drawn.

"He must be coming soon," she said, and Miss Schuyler noticed the strained
evenness of her voice. "Yes, of course he's coming. It would be too
horrible if we could not find him."

"Jake Cheyne and his cavalry boys would save the br