"Bill?" Helen's eyes lighted up, and a warm smile shone in them as she glanced down at her letter again. "He says he'll be through with Charlie's affairs soon. He's in Amberley. He's had to see to things through the police. He's coming right on here the moment he's through.

He's--he's going to wire me when he starts. Kate?"

"Yes, dear."

Kate turned from the cook stove at the abruptness of her sister's tone. Helen began to speak rapidly, and as she talked she kept her gaze fixed upon the window.

"It's--it's a long while now, since--that day. We were both feeling mighty bad 'bout things then. We," she smiled whimsically, "sort of didn't know whether it was Rocky Springs, or Broadway, did we? And there was such a lot I didn't know or understand. And I never asked a question. Did I?"

Kate winced visibly. The moment she had always dreaded had come. She had realized that it must eventually come, and for days she had wondered vaguely how she would be able to meet it. The smile which strove to reach her eyes was a failure, and, for a moment, a hunted look threatened. In the end, however, she forced herself to perfect calmness.

"I don't think I could have answered them then if you had," she said gently. "I don't know that I can answer many now--for both our sakes."

Helen thought for some moments. Then she appeared to have arrived at a determination.

"How did you--come home that day--and why? I didn't expect you until the next day."

Kate drew a deep breath.

"I came back--riding," she said. "I came back because--because I had to."

"Why?"

"Because of the--disaster out there."

"You knew?"

Kate nodded.

"Pretty well everything. That is all I can tell you, dear." Kate crossed the room, and stood beside her sister's chair. She laid one gentle hand upon her shoulder. "Don't ask me any more about that.

It--it is like--like searing my very soul with red-hot irons. That must be my secret, and you must forgive me for keeping it from you.

Ask me anything else, and I will tell you--but leave that alone. It can do n.o.body any good."

Helen leaned her head on one side till her soft cheek rested caressingly upon her sister's hand.

"Forgive me, Kate," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'll never mention it again--never."

For some moments neither spoke. But Kate was waiting. She knew there were other questions that must be asked and answered.

"Was it because of the felling of that tree you went away?" Helen asked presently.

Kate shook her head.

"No."

Helen started up.

"I knew it wasn't. Oh, Kate, I knew it wasn't. It was so unlike you. I know why you went. Listen," she went on, almost excitedly. "You always defended Charlie. You pretended to believe him straight. You--you stuck to him through thick and thin. You flouted every charge made against him. It was because of him you went away. You went to try and help him--save him. All the time you knew he was against the law.

That's why you went. Oh, Kate, I knew it--I knew it."

Helen was looking up into her sister's shadowed face with loyal enthusiasm shining in her admiring eyes.

Kate gravely shook her head.

"I believed every word I said of Charlie. As G.o.d is my witness I believed it. And I tell you now, Helen, that as long as I live my heart will be bowed down beneath a terrible weight of grief and remorse at the death of a brave, honest, and loyal gentleman. I have no more to say. I never shall have--on the subject. I love you, Helen, and shall always love you. My one thought in life now is your welfare.

If you love me, dear, then leave those things. Leave them as part of a cruel, evil, shadowed time, which must be put behind us. All I want you to ever remember of it--when you are the happy wife of your Big Brother Bill--is that Charlie was all we believed him, in spite of all appearances, and he died the n.o.blest, the most heroic death that man ever died."

Kate bent down and tenderly kissed 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 gra.s.s, which seemed to know no end.

The wide flat trail, so bare and hard, pa.s.sed her by, and vanished into the valley behind her. In the opposite direction, at long intervals, it showed up in sections as it pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s. Any dwelling of man within reach of the searching eye must have been hidden in the troughs between the crests of summer gra.s.s. 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, seeking by every means in his lumbering power to shield the memory of the dead man from the effects of the manner of his death. Helen honored her lover for it. He was just the good, loyal soul she had believed. And now, as she stood with the tinted paper message, announcing his return in her hand, she smiled, and wondered tenderly what blunders he would contrive in the process.

Sundown. Sundown would not be for at least two hours. Two hours. Two hours meant some fourteen or sixteen miles by horse upon the trail.

She told herself she could not see for sixteen miles, nor even for eight. It was absurd waiting there. She had already been waiting there over an hour. Then she smiled, laughing at herself for her absurd yearning for this lover of hers. He was so big, so foolish, so honest and loyal--and, he was just hers.

She sat down again on the ground, as already she had seated herself many times. She would restrain her impatience. She would not just get up at every----

She was on her feet again at the very moment of making her resolve.

This time her eyes were straining and wide open. Every nerve in her body was at a tension. Some one was on the trail this time. Certain.

It was a horseman, too. There was no mistake, but he was near, quite near, comparatively. How had she come to miss him in the far distance?

She saw the figure as it came over a rising ground. She watched it closely. Then she saw it was not on the trail, but was making for it--across country. Now she knew. Now she was certain, and she laughed and clapped her hands. It must be Bill, and--of course he had lost himself, and now, at last, had found his way.

The horseman came on at a great pace.

As he drew nearer a frown of doubt crossed the girl's face. He did not appear big enough--somehow.