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Rh of Miss Judith amounted to a passion. His belief in the sincerity of the defiance she had thrown in her father's face was slight, his hope that it would endure until the wind changed or the moon set was nil. He set himself sedulously to divert Judith with the magic of his conversational powers, an offering indifferently received. He was still blithely gossiping when Judith flung away to her sister's side.

The ensuing quarrel seemed the more portentous in view of the restraint imposed upon themselves by both parties thereto; they were at pains not to betray the all-too-patient subject of their dispute, so thoughtfully modulating their accents that never a word was audible to Barcus. He believed, however, that a crisis impended when the tinkle of mule-bells sounded down the cañon road. Judith's ears were as quick as his own, she, too, had caught the sound of bells behind the base of the hill. And of a sudden, without another word, she turned and flung away into the thickets of undergrowth that masked the cañon to either side of the wagon-trail. In a twinkling she had lost herself to view. …

The remainder of that business was transacted rapidly enough. There were no preparations to be made, once Alan had ridden up with his three burros, nothing remained but to mount and make off. Farewells were not for Trine, though Barcus didn't neg-