ALMA was alone at a late breakfast, having risen unrefreshed from a few hours' sleep after two nights' vigil at Nearing's side. It was near noonday now; Mrs. Nearing, to whom this crisis in a long suspense seemed less terrible than the waiting for it to fall, was with her husband.
A quiet was over the house and premises, as if death already had fallen upon the master of that princely domain. The corrals were empty; old Manuel was the only man about the place.
The pursuit of Findlay and his rustlers had drawn the far-scattered neighbors away. Save for the doctor from the post, nobody had visited the ranch in two days. Alma never had felt the isolation and loneliness of it so sharply as now, separated, as they seemed to be, by this tragedy from all the world.
She knew that Nearing, wounded and at death's door as he lay, was under a shadow of suspicion which would formulate into definite challenges should be ever walk forth in the sun again. She knew it would be far better for him to die, in the disgrace that was only partly known, partly guessed, than live to answer to something she shuddered to think upon.
The front door, never locked in her recollection, closed softly. Thinking it was the doctor come from the post, Alma rose to receive him. Dale Findlay con-
