M I ARTS 
 SPIADFAST 
 
 ^iSm^MB MOFFAT 
 
OF TH^^ 
 
 OF . 
 CALIFOK^^-^ 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD S. MOFFAT 
 
 Author of "The Desert and Mrs. Ajax," "The Misadventures 
 of Cassidy," "The Highgrader," and other stories. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 
 
 1915 
 
Copyright, 1915 
 By MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 PART ONE 
 THE EAST 
 
 r^' ^ viyvj jst * "<fc ^ 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IT was yet a little while to dawn when Alva 
 woke. For a time she lay among her 
 tumbled coverings, luxuriously inert, lazily 
 trying to piece the night's phantasms together 
 and doze back into a repetition of her dreams. 
 But the sun was soon streaming in beside her 
 bed, blocking out the cool, green matting on her 
 floor with bars of yellow light and, as the call 
 of the waves along the shore came stronger, her 
 body grew restive with life. Pushing herself 
 upright on a boyishly muscled arm, with the 
 dark rope of her hair tumbling across her 
 breast, the girl sat looking out of her window 
 at the golden crescent of the beach and the 
 still, lavender waters of the Sound. 
 
 Everywhere blessed sunlight gleamed back 
 at her — from yellow shingle with its myriad, 
 glinting pebbles — from pillared cottage and 
 dazzling window pane — from her canoe, up- 
 
2 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 turned on the grass — from a wheeling gull and 
 a snowy sail far down the shore. And against 
 the pierhead at the end of the walk the forever 
 lapping waves were whispering, whispering. 
 Like herself, the world was silent, but it was 
 awake. 
 
 Impetuously she tossed off her coverings and 
 slipped into the bathing suit laid out on the 
 chair beside her bed. A moment spent inspect- 
 ing a rounded knee she had bruised on the court 
 the day before and another in which to knot her 
 rubber cap tighter about her head and she was 
 ready. She was young, she was strong, she 
 was exuberantly well — the song of the sea was 
 humming in her veins — wherefore she would 
 steal forth into this silent, sunlit world and 
 have her glorious swim. At the head of the 
 stairs she hesitated for sounds from her 
 father's room which would say that he, too, was 
 awake; but, hearing nothing, padded softly 
 down with silken feet and sped away towards 
 the pier, thrilled with the dewy freshness of 
 the grass. Looking back at the shuttered cot- 
 tages and the bulk of the hotel she was glad to 
 see only a gardener with his hose, pottering 
 about a lawn. For in this wonderful, secret 
 hour the girl wanted nothing so much as com- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 3 
 
 plete freedom from restraint — to double the de- 
 licious tremors of the plunge by being quite 
 alone — to practice her "jack-knife'' and "back- 
 dive'' and "trudgeon" to her heart's content, 
 untroubled by critical male eyes. 
 
 From all of which it may be truthfully sur- 
 mised that Miss Alva Leigh was pretty nearly 
 just what she seemed, outwardly, to be — a per- 
 fectly normal, well cared-for young person of 
 twenty-two, with no worldly troubles whatever, 
 a very definite love of sport and a correspond- 
 ingly strong dislike for strenuous mental effort 
 or futile self-analysis at any time. In fact. 
 Miss Alva Leigh preferred to analyze life just 
 as infrequently as possible, for it very fortun- 
 ately happened that her days were too thronged 
 with the joys of living to miss one jot of it by 
 mulling over anything which had gone before. 
 Just now, with her senses pleasantly clouded 
 with sleep, her mind seemed hardly to be a 
 place of thoughts at all but, rather, an amusing 
 collection of fleeting impressions — a sense of 
 springy turf beneath her feet, of sweet odors 
 from vine and flower-bed, of a grateful sun 
 that tingled on her neck, of swift, exultant 
 limbs that bore her seaward. As a matter of 
 fact, only one thought occurred to her with any 
 
4 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 marked distinctness in this pleasantly pagan 
 state and this one came just as she stood poised 
 on the pierhead, a momentary prey to the de- 
 lightful qualms which always preceded the 
 plunge. Flitting into her mind from some ir- 
 responsible source, its extravagance made her 
 laugh out loud as she swung her arms above 
 her head. 
 
 "This must be the way a person feels just 
 after a person has been married,'' thought 
 Alva. And then, with a perfect, arching dive, 
 was in. 
 
 The day was never properly begun for this 
 strenuously athletic young person unless she 
 touched bottom in her plunge. But this morn- 
 ing a good twenty feet of clear, green water 
 lay above the sand and she saw, as quickly as 
 she opened her eyes, that she would have to 
 fight to win. As she drove downwards with 
 even, powerful strokes she wished she had 
 taken a deeper breath. 
 
 At fifteen feet, as might have been expected, 
 Alva began to feel distressed. A yard or so 
 deeper and she seemed to have got into the 
 clutch of a giant hand, with his iron fingers 
 digging in her ears. Her strokes slackened 
 for a moment as the pain mounted in her chest. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 5 
 
 She saw the far-off, murky bottom first stand 
 still and then recede. And then, while every 
 physical call was for air and relief from this 
 intolerable pain, from somewhere came a de- 
 termination to conquer in what she had set out 
 to do — a curious, steadily hardening anger 
 which seemed to make a personal enemy of the 
 invisible foe and only grow the stronger and 
 blinder the more it was opposed. Putting out 
 the last ounce of her strength, the girl drove 
 herself down again with staring eyes and claw- 
 ing hands. She would strike out until she 
 could do no more — the rest would have to take 
 care of itself. Unnecessary? Yes — admit- 
 tedly — ^but in natures essentially simple both 
 faults and virtues are very simply expressed, 
 and it so happened this morning that the girl 
 named Alva Leigh was helplessly obeying her 
 nature's principal requirement down there be- 
 neath the mist-hung waters of the Sound. 
 
 At last she touched and, with the fierce joy 
 of victory flaming in her breast, shot like an 
 otter to the surface. The light streamed 
 through and sounds roared in her ears — she 
 was almost in the air again. Then, suddenly, 
 her head thudded violently against a strange 
 body which was neither very hard nor very 
 
.6 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 soft but which interposed a frightening bar- 
 rier between herself and the precious air. 
 There was a moment of awful panic and a 
 desperate effort to swim around it, a confused 
 altercation with some legs which kicked at her, 
 then she burst through into the sunlight di- 
 rectly in front of a crisp, blonde head, two as- 
 tonished blue eyes and a masculine mouthful 
 of good, white teeth. 
 
 "Hoh!" laughed the mouth, and spluttered 
 out an amazing quantity of salt water. 
 
 "Hoh!'' responded Alva correctly, and 
 choked. 
 
 The blonde unknown thrust out a helping 
 hand. 
 
 "I say! I hope I didn't hurt you," he panted. 
 "I didn't mean to get in your way, you know. 
 Never knew you were there. Not crippled? 
 You're sure?" 
 
 "Not a bit," smiled Alva, though her heart 
 still thudded. ''Much obliged for the lift. 
 You can let go now." And, turning over on 
 her back, she half swam, half floated back to 
 the pier. 
 
 Yellow Head followed at a discreet distance, 
 masking very perceptible interest with con- 
 cern. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 7 
 
 '1 say! Wasn't that beastly stupid of me?" 
 he called. '1 do wish I were sure you're not 
 hurt." 
 
 *'Oh, no. It was quite all my own fault," 
 Alva assured him as she climbed up. Then, 
 feeling a little done up, she sat down on the 
 pier bench and helplessly watched him ap- 
 proach — such a very big young man that she 
 feared he would never stop coming up the lad- 
 der. 
 
 A pair of long and capably muscled arms — 
 a small and well shaped head of the familiar 
 New England type, with faintly prominent 
 cheek-bones, clean cut jaw and ears close set 
 — ^legs not too straight nor calves too thick — 
 a barrel of a chest. As he straightened up she 
 saw that his big back muscles made him v- 
 Bhaped from the waist up and knew that here, 
 at last, was some one who could paddle a canoe. 
 He might have been termed good-looking too, 
 but after all his best feature was his wide, good 
 natured mouth, which promptly broke into a 
 cheerful grin. Yellow Head stuck out an im- 
 pulsive hand. 
 
 "Awfully sorry all over again," this pleas- 
 antly informal person said, with an infectious 
 laugh. "I was down there scouting around 
 
8 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 for a pin I lost there yesterday. Must have 
 been down two minutes or more — that's why I 
 didn't see you. Ought to have known better 
 than to trust that pin to a flimsy old suit like 
 mine," he gloomed. 
 
 ''Fraternity?" Alva hazarded. 
 
 "Yes," he nodded. "Beta Chi. Columbia. 
 Oh, yes. I forgot. My name's Jaffray. I'm 
 down here with Bunk Higgins. You know 
 Bunk and Natalie, of course ? Bunk thinks he 
 can play the royal game of tennis and I came 
 down yesterday to show him the error of his 
 ways. You play, I know — I've heard all about 
 it. I'll bet you play a slashing game. Will 
 you play with me? We'll sweep the courts if 
 you do," he assured her with fetching confi- 
 dence. "Oh — say! Is that your canoe? 
 Fine! Fine! Just give me a paddle, please, 
 and watch me skim you across the Sound !" 
 
 There didn't seem to be any perceptible break 
 in Yellow Head's enthusiasms and his tongue 
 was delightfully free. Alva felt both at- 
 tracted and amused. 
 
 "Play golf, of course? What's your best 
 drive? A hundred and eighty — ninety f 
 Bully ! Oh, yes," he admitted at her question. 
 "I'm a little bit at it, myself, but no great 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 9 
 
 shakes. It hasn't got the punch. Baseball, 
 football and track — those are my games — and 
 tennis." 
 
 His roving eye seized on the garage behind 
 the house as they neared the land end of the 
 pier. *'Car, too !" he chortled. ''Bet you drive 
 it yourself. Alas! No hideous luxury like 
 that in mine. Tve got to find my gold mine 
 first. Let's walk and save the gasoline. Now, 
 don't forget about that tennis, will you?" he 
 insisted with delicious self-confidence. "Half- 
 past ten might prove the significant hour. 
 You and I against Bunk and Natalie — or that 
 good sport Sally Lowe-girl, what? You lure 
 them on to their fate over the 'phone and I'll 
 come shyly along with reluctant feet. Good!" 
 he said firmly, before she could either accede 
 or decline. "That's the stuff! Mum's the 
 word. We'll make 'em howl. Good-by." 
 
 He left her, this irrepressible young giant, 
 with a painfully fervent grip of his big hand 
 and another of his engaging grins and struck 
 out on a run for the Higgins cottage down the 
 beach. For a hundred yards or more he 
 jogged along over the tarred pavement and 
 then charged over impetuously onto the soft 
 lawn where he stretched his long legs in an 
 
lo HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 amazing burst of speed. Just when Alva had 
 firmly decided to watch this attractive person 
 no longer he brought up at the Higgins steps, 
 looked back, laughed and, very disconcertingly, 
 waved his hand. 
 
 The girl colored faintly, just a little doubt- 
 ful as to the good taste of the salute. The dis- 
 creet youths who came down to Madison each 
 year from the colleges all beautifully turned 
 out from the same correct mold would have 
 been most careful of that. And yet something 
 told her that here was a good deal more than 
 the usual mild appeal of collegiate enthusiasms 
 — something refreshingly untamed, a little 
 more creative than discretion. And so, be- 
 cause she and the unknown had probably 
 broken all known records for making acquaint- 
 ance and because, in the second place, she 
 couldn't help it, she waved a faint return. 
 
 An hour later Alva came down to breakfast. 
 Still glowing from her vigorous rub, fresh, 
 starry-eyed and all in white down to her red 
 soled tennis shoes she was the very picture of 
 physical efficiency, a modern Atalanta ready 
 for a happy day. Yet, as she passed through 
 the big living-room which fronted, one way, on 
 the vivid green of the lawns and, the other way. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST ii 
 
 on the sparkling miles of the Sound she ran a 
 housekeeper's eye over floor and furniture, for 
 Alva had been motherless even before she went 
 to Farmington to school and the girl was mis- 
 tress in her father's house. 
 
 But the maids had done their work and there 
 was little of which she might complain — she 
 could only give a re-arranging touch to a book 
 or a table cover here and there. And so she 
 presently paused and gave up a moment to 
 quiet enjoyment of the pretty room with its 
 gay coverings of flowered chintz, its cool grass 
 rugs and summery wicker furniture. 
 
 There was not a great deal in the room, al- 
 though one knew there might have been. The 
 confidence with which the big red bowl sat 
 boldly alone on top of the black walnut book- 
 case, the unadorned grace of the two, slim, 
 silver vases on the mantel-shelf, the conceded 
 unmodernity of the half dozen hunting prints 
 on the walls, were simply assurances of the 
 ability to do much more, if it were thought 
 worth while. Even the easy chair in which the 
 girl loved to see her father sit at night with the 
 light from his reading lamp making a cameo of 
 his delicate profile was not obtrusively an ar- 
 ticle of luxury. That, too, had its air of con- 
 
12 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 tented freedom from nouveau riche require- 
 ments. If the Leigh easy chair had been mor- 
 tal it would probably have been a duke, un- 
 embarrassed in old clothes. 
 
 It must be conceded here that it had never 
 before occurred to Alva to value the material 
 surroundings of her father's life and hers. 
 Doubtless this was because they were so wholly 
 satisfying. There was always plenty of 
 money — she bought practically whatever she 
 wanted — like so many other things which made 
 up her happy, rather thoughtless existence she 
 accepted all these comforts without concern 
 either as to their source or their significance. 
 Some people, of course, would have termed this 
 selfishness but the fact of the matter merely 
 was that, so far, there had been no occasion 
 for any deep, dark investigation into life. 
 When everything is given you and life is 
 pleasant, why investigate? In the same way, 
 Alva was never at much pains to arrange her 
 social affairs — they seemed, somehow, always 
 to adjust themselves. Social chasms, when 
 they occasionally interposed between herself 
 and casual acquaintances, were detected more 
 often by instinct than by thoughtful analysis. 
 She was, in fact, simply a girl of splendidly 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 13 
 
 quick appreciations — not morbidly thin skinned 
 but only of that fine nature which feels dis- 
 tinctions intuitively — as if all the senses drank 
 them in instead of only two — and she lived her 
 life gracefully and easily by a sort of preor- 
 dained knack of doing only the right thing. 
 
 But this morning there seemed to be some- 
 thing in existence which called for very definite 
 valuing and with it came the consciousness that 
 the power had suddenly been given her. It 
 was as if she was a school girl once more, sur- 
 prised to see an obstinate geometrical proposi- 
 tion yielding up its proof — or as if her opin- 
 ions had been chemicals mixed but motionless 
 in a bowl and a shock had crystallized them. 
 Once more she looked around the room and 
 for the first time it came over her fully that she, 
 Alva Leigh, was an exceptionally fortunate 
 young woman. In all that made up her life to- 
 day, the love of her father, her circle of friends, 
 her worldly possessions, whether they were 
 part of the summer home here at Madison or 
 the big Park Avenue house in town there was 
 not one that was not utterly satisfactory — 
 nothing but the loveliest and best. 
 
 A great love for life welled up in the girl's 
 heart. She felt a sudden longing to fulfill her 
 
14 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 duty to all of this which had so evidently been 
 given her for some certain purpose — a con- 
 sciousness, too, of unusual strength of body 
 and will which must be properly applied or she 
 would waste the splendid gifts of which she 
 had just now become inordinately proud. But 
 the means discernible on this strangely happy 
 summer morning were still all too vague. In 
 spite of the urge which radiant health and new 
 appreciations were giving her, Alva, not un- 
 naturally, could not see much beyond the cus- 
 tomary activities of a girl in her position — a 
 right marriage, children, good friends, a 
 properly balanced interest in those who were 
 unfortunate. And so, after a little while the 
 moment's curious exaltation passed away and 
 Alva was only a vigorous young pagan again, 
 with a recollecting smile for the bubbling 
 young giant of the pier and a very frank desire 
 for something to eat. 
 
 Within the breakfast-room the percolator 
 plupped contentedly and sent up little wisps of 
 steam. Alva set the toaster going, dropping 
 the doors from time to time and turning the 
 golden slices over with the tip of a pink finger. 
 Then she looked up and smiled happily again. 
 Sunlight in floods, the aroma of bacon from be- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 15 
 
 hind pantry doors, damask, silver, the packet 
 of letters and the crisply folded newspaper be- 
 side her father's plate, the flat green glass dish 
 in the center of the table, where four old-rose 
 hollyhocks lay as if dropped lightly in a pool — 
 everything was as it should be on this glorious 
 morning. And outside on the freshly hosed 
 veranda two agitated, curly, black retrievers 
 whined for a pat and clawed reproachfully at 
 the screen door. 
 
 A step on the stairs and in the living-room — 
 a deferential little pause at the door where he 
 bowed *%ood-morning" with a twinkle in his 
 eye — and Rutherford Leigh sat down at his 
 place and addressed himself to his grape-fruit. 
 He was a rather slender, daintily dressed gen- 
 tleman, with a waxen skin, delicate features, 
 white, pointed beard and noticeably small 
 hands and feet — who always wore a bouton- 
 niere and always seemed quite cool and self- 
 possessed. It cannot be said that he gave the 
 impression of very great strength either 
 physical or mental, but when one remembered 
 that he had been left a fortune when he was a 
 young man there seemed little necessity for 
 him to be much more than a graceful, pleas- 
 antly scholarly personality who might better 
 
i6 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 be appealed to in matters o£ artistic taste than 
 business. To confirm this idea there was the 
 testimony that Rutherford Leigh had been a 
 good deal of a traveler in his early days and 
 had contributed several papers of more or less 
 moment to the Royal Geographical Society, al- 
 though nowadays his activities were confined 
 to the leisurely collecting of rare prints which 
 he afterwards bound into his books. He had 
 married Incarnacion De la Fuente, the daugh- 
 ter of an old Spanish family which had come 
 to the United States shortly after the Civil War 
 and had engaged profitably in exporting. The 
 marriage, however, had not been carried out 
 without considerable opposition from the De 
 la Fuente brothers. People didn't know just 
 what the objection had been but Tomas and 
 Antonio and Domingo De la Fuente had been 
 a unit in opposing it and had not been good 
 friends with Alva's mother subsequently. Of 
 the three brothers only Antonio now remained, 
 an exquisitely polite, little brown wisp of a 
 man with offices in a high building down at 
 Bowling Green, whence he could see his argo- 
 sies set sail, but Alva saw her Uncle 'Tonio 
 only infrequently although she knew he liked 
 her and she liked him. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 17 
 
 And so, when people knew of the Puritan 
 father and the CastiHan mother, it was not 
 difficult to see that Alva Leigh, while not neces- 
 sarily a person of contradictions, might easily 
 have two sides to her nature. She would un- 
 doubtedly be quick to anger, like her Spanish 
 forebears, and yet where they would finally 
 have loosed their hold the colder Pilgrim blood 
 would quietly, but just as passionately, keep 
 on striving, fighting, most of all, pursuing. 
 In the girFs big dark eyes the fires of passion- 
 ate romance smoldered and yet, so far, the 
 fires had been controlled by nerves as cool as 
 ice. Just now the two natures were in balance 
 but some day, perhaps, would come a sudden 
 assault and then, in the struggle for survival, 
 one of the two would be forever lost. 
 
 "Great water this morning, Dad ! Touched 
 bottom at twenty feet !'' 
 
 "And no one helped?" her father asked 
 quizzically, as he folded his paper over to the 
 stock reports. 
 
 "Oh, yes. A rather nice strange young man 
 helped — by nearly drowning me." 
 
 "Strange?" asked her father, who owned a 
 rare sense for foreign elements. 
 
 " 'Yes' and 'No.' He's Bunk's engineer 
 
i8 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 friend from Columbia. They've been talking 
 about him for weeks. Natalie's sure we'll be 
 crazy about him. But he hasn't a penny, I 
 know. Just for that I expect to play tennis 
 with him, violently, at half-past ten." 
 
 Rutherford Leigh nodded abstractedly. 
 Having been assured in this rather fragment- 
 ary fashion that the somebody in question was 
 the friend of somebody else and therefore prop- 
 erly accounted for, he set his eye on the stock 
 quotations. Meanwhile his hand went out to- 
 wards his coffee cup. 
 
 It was a fine, dry, scholarly hand, this hand 
 of Rutherford Leigh's, and well kept, too — an 
 almost feminine hand, in fact, which fortu- 
 nately or unfortunately had never done much 
 in life except turn over, rather superciliously, 
 records of what other men had created out 
 of their blood and tears and sweat. This 
 thought, however, had never been brought 
 home to Rutherford Leigh and up to date he 
 was well satisfied with life. Presently his deli- 
 cate hand, in its leisurely wanderings, would 
 reach his delicate cup and he would feel his 
 coffee, comforting and aromatic, against his 
 lips, while he mused on the course of the market 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 19 
 
 and let the consciousness of his perspicacity 
 steal over him with the warmth of his drink. 
 
 But, for some unknown reason, the hand did 
 not immediately reach his cup this morning. 
 Instead, it stopped in mid-air, quivered and 
 then dropped, clenched, on the table. Still, 
 it made no noise and, for all his daughter saw, 
 Rutherford Leigh was only centering his mind 
 acutely on something that he read. 
 
 Finding her father presently too preoccup- 
 pied to make more than monosyllabic replies 
 to her remarks, Alva excused herself as soon 
 as she had finished and turned to the duties of 
 the day. Principally, these consisted in going 
 to market in her car, partly for the ride itself 
 and partly because of the firm conviction that 
 green-grocers, among rich cottagers, were but 
 human. This, too, was the hour in which her 
 father read his mail in a cool corner of the 
 porch and where they generally met to ex- 
 change plans for the day, so when she had run 
 her car back into the garage a little later she 
 was surprised not to find him in his accustomed 
 place. Instead, he was sitting inert in a chair 
 on the Sound side of the house, in the full glare 
 of the sun. His newspaper was lying on the 
 
20 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 floor in a heap and only one of his letters had 
 been opened. As she drew near he folded it 
 shut and slipped it into his pocket. 
 
 "About that car of mine, Dad/' his daughter 
 said. "IVe been sizing it up going over the 
 bumps and I'm afraid it isn't going to stand 
 another year's racket. If I'm going to ex- 
 change it I think I'd better do it right away. 
 The gasoline man over in the village tells me 
 I can get five hundred dollars on it in a swap 
 and by adding a thousand — " 
 
 Something in her father's manner made the 
 girl hesitate. For once in his life he seemed 
 curiously remote and troubled. 
 
 "That would be a very fair bargin, I should 
 say," he answered in considerate but rather 
 lifeless tones. "But are you quite sure that 
 you really need a new car? Not being a 
 mechanic or a motoring enthusiast I can only 
 ask that kind of a question." 
 
 Alva read his mind. 
 
 "It's too much money," she said, with quick 
 resentment for her sudden demand. "I won't 
 spend it. Forgive me for ever speaking of 
 it. Dad. I guess I must be selfish." 
 
 "No. You're not at all selfish," her father 
 contradicted gently. "But, since you've put it 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 21 
 
 in the light of unnecessary expense perhaps 
 we'd better let it stay there — for a time. I 
 don't mind telling you that owing to some — 
 er — investments I have lately made — certain 
 business engagements I have entered into — 
 obligations which no really honorable man 
 would shirk — " 
 
 Alva laid a soft finger on his lips. 
 
 "Not a word, Dad dear. You'll hear no 
 more from me for months. And now I'm go- 
 ing to get ready for a little tennis with the new 
 playmate. Better come watch me win!" 
 
 Rutherford Leigh smiled faintly but shook 
 his head. He kept the smile until the sound 
 of the screen door told him that his daughter 
 was surely inside. Then something wiped the 
 smile away. His hand sought his pocket. He 
 took his letter out and opened it, slumping 
 down in his chair. Before he had opened his 
 letter the first time Rutherford Leigh had been 
 a very prosperous looking man — a rather good 
 looking man, too, — not very old and certainly 
 in good physical preservation. But something 
 he had learned during the past hour had 
 changed all that and now, as he sat shrunken 
 in his chair, he was like a man whose physician 
 has definitely fixed the number of his days. 
 
22 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 He stared at his letter and then stared unsee- 
 ingly over its top across the featureless reaches 
 of the Sound. It was not a long letter but 
 what it said was very much to the point, for it 
 had been written by the senior member of the 
 firm of Hicks & Wicks of Wall Street. 
 
 Now, one may buy stocks and salt them down 
 and one may buy bonds for investment. Also, 
 if one has unlimited means, one may not un- 
 righteously take a little flyer for amusement's 
 sake, but when an elderly recluse, who for years 
 has been secretly living up his capital, attempts 
 the marginal buying of a staple only one result 
 may reasonably be expected, even though he 
 deal through specialists. And Hicks & Wicks 
 were "specialists'* — in ''Sugar." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 44 
 
 SCORE is — forty-love !'' droned the official 
 scorer, perched precariously on top of his 
 stepladder, and sighed with relief over the im- 
 minent end of the finals in the Mixed Doubles 
 Cup. "Games are — five-one! Miss Leigh 
 and Mr. Jafifray leading." 
 
 The new playmate flashed a look of en- 
 couragement at Alva, cool and determined on 
 the back line — grinned triumphantly as her 
 serve skimmed the net like a bullet — then 
 pounded a feeble return down the side line 
 where recovery was hopeless. After which 
 victors and vanquished shook hands efifusively 
 at the net and Alva and Donald, flushed and 
 smiling, hastily sought places among the War- 
 rens and Lowes and Higginses decorating the 
 grass, there to be genially assaulted by shrieks 
 of: 
 
 "Mughunters !" 
 
 ''Oh, you Americans commercialize every- 
 thing!'' 
 
 23 
 
24 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "We don't see how you have the nerve to 
 take it r 
 
 But Alva only laughed, with shining eyes, 
 and settled down to cool out in her big, white 
 coat, content to sit silent but amused in part- 
 ner-like proximity while her yellow headed 
 champion ably defended their joint attach- 
 ment of nearly every golf and tennis trophy 
 since the season opened. 
 
 To the philosophical observer, the bare- 
 headed two in flannels with their new cup be- 
 tween them on the grass, made only another 
 of those diverting pairs for whose particular 
 benefit our summer worlds seem to have been 
 created — a muscular, brown-armed boy and 
 girl, blissfully content in each other's company 
 and fantastically irresponsible. For whom 
 houses exist merely to rest in for a few be- 
 grudged hours, servants to gather up hastily 
 changed garments, cooks to feed the fires of 
 energy and parents to pay bills — not always 
 in love with one another, it's true, but always 
 irrepressibly, amazingly, gloriously in love 
 with life. 
 
 Now, in the pages of truly popular romance 
 the young woman of this pair would be gifted 
 with many and strange talents. Chief among 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 25 
 
 these would be a rather appalHng determina- 
 tion to marry the man she wanted. Our Hght 
 hearted novelist would have small concern 
 with the lady's ruthlessness to friend or foe 
 in her pursuit if he could only invest her in 
 enough sharp practice to entertain those who 
 are entertained by that sort of thing. While 
 if she happened to be so priceless a character 
 as an heiress she would be promptly written 
 down as a kind of super-woman, overcoming 
 all resistances by her cheek and her checkbook. 
 Predatory females would be summarily driven 
 off and parents sturdily overborne by this de- 
 lightful creature, opportunity for the proposal 
 would be boldly provided, the helpless male 
 firmly secured. Or, at least, so it would read. 
 But Alva Leigh, being steadfast rather than 
 aggressive and essentially athletic instead of 
 sentimental, couldn't seem to do any of these 
 things. She could only enjoy to the utmost 
 every minute that she spent with Donald and, 
 when something kept him away, wonder 
 dumbly what she could do with herself until 
 they would be together again. Not such a 
 strange situation for one who has passed 
 through it but quite strange enough for any 
 one the first time and, in Alva's case, full of 
 
26 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 anguish. For Alva Leigh, in her whole- 
 hearted acceptance of the new playmate, had 
 thought for several weeks that she was only 
 following love of fun — until fun unmasked 
 and showed itself as love of Donald. When 
 she realized this, and she did not acknowledge it 
 hastily, came a second conviction in which 
 there was no happiness at all — nothing, in fact, 
 but old fashioned despair. She thought she 
 saw that Donald, unlike herself, was still en- 
 tirely in the thrall of Sport — that he would 
 never realize that she, who had so suddenly 
 learned the meaning of their companionship, 
 was standing, waiting. 
 
 And so the last week of the boy's stay at 
 Madison, with the interested Higgins family 
 and the Warrens and the Lowes and many 
 other people unknown to the girl looking on, 
 became a rather tragic period for Alva. In 
 that week everything seemed to go wrong. It 
 was not given her to understand her father's 
 business affairs but she realized now that all 
 had not been well with him for some time past. 
 Rutherford Leigh seemed worried, even 
 shaken. He had lost his erect carriage and 
 the look of placidity he had worn all through 
 the years. He was abstracted. He forgot his 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 2y 
 
 flower. Sometimes he was brusque. Often 
 he sat for hours slumped down in his chair on 
 the porch, staring out over the Sound with his 
 book closed on his knee. Or else he spent his 
 days in town, coming back on a late evening 
 train, haggard and harassed. Several times 
 the girl found opportunity to bring her father 
 and Donald together but Rutherford Leigh 
 had proved so disappointingly uninterested in 
 the young man that Alva had given up the 
 attempt with a puzzled feeling of hurt. 
 
 But this was not all that had disturbed the 
 girl for, under the stress of feeling, she had 
 begun to study Donald and to worry over one 
 glaring fault. It had nothing to do, as it hap- 
 pened, with his plans for the future for, vague 
 as they seemed to be, he must work these out 
 for himself, nor had it to do with the gift he 
 would not accept or else was too blind to see. 
 Perhaps it was only a tendency at the worst 
 and one that jealousy might be exaggerating 
 but the fact remained that Mr. Donald Jaffray 
 was very definitely lacking in an important 
 kind of discrimination. 
 
 Even at the most conservative resort the 
 idle months of summer are the gay outlaws of 
 the social year and it seemed to Alva as if that 
 
28 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 last week filled Madison with every sort of girl 
 she did not like. It seemed, too, as if every 
 merry-eyed irresponsible who secured partners 
 all too quickly at the hotel dances or created a 
 sensation on the beach contrived to interest 
 Donald. In fact, he appeared to gravitate 
 helplessly towards such women, as if there 
 were some hereditary germ of social outlawry 
 in his blood. And yet, oddly enough, when 
 the boy came back to her each time he seemed 
 to steady down immediately in his apprecia- 
 tion of the better kind of friends. In the past 
 two days the two had got back on their solid 
 basis of companionship again and Alva grew 
 happier in the belief that it was only his super- 
 abundant spirits that needed control. 
 
 But their last evening together found the 
 boy wordless and the girl distrait and sad. 
 They knew they had had thirty golden days 
 together out of a summer made wonderful by 
 every diversion that genius could invent and 
 now that it was over they were wondering if 
 this was all that such things meant. Their 
 hearts were choked with the poignant queries 
 of Youth and yet they were afraid to ask. 
 They could only see that they had grown in- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 29 
 
 dispensable one to the other and now bleak 
 parting loomed up ahead. 
 
 Until a day or so before Alva had secretly 
 cherished the hope that her father might help 
 her keep Donald home in the East. While, 
 of course, the boy must never know, it seemed 
 so easy to arrange with some old business 
 friend for a position to be offered him — such 
 things had been done for many a man she knew. 
 So far as Alva could see, a mining engineer 
 could just as profitably mine chalk as gold if 
 a position were made for him. But, after her 
 first discouraging attempt to enlist her father's 
 help the girl's better judgment came to her 
 rescue. The fact was, Donald was not yet 
 ready to be helped. There was too much that 
 he must first work off, too many vague the- 
 ories, inconsequent ideas, slack habits, too much 
 of the young Adam. It would take time and 
 perhaps a little adversity to burn them away 
 but in the end he would be a bigger, cleaner 
 man for it. 
 
 For a while they tried to dance in the half 
 empty ballroom of the hotel but found it curi- 
 ously unamusing. Thoughts of the morning 
 weighed too heavily on them — too much was 
 
30 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 yet unsaid. And so, exchanging unspoken 
 consent, they left the lights and the blaring 
 music and wandered in melancholy fashion 
 down towards the pier. There a moonless 
 night wrapped them round with its velvet pall. 
 Except for a vague shape stretching landwards 
 to the line of yellow lights along the drive they 
 might have been miles out at sea. A bench 
 was there and they sat down. After a time 
 Donald spoke. 
 
 ''Do you know," he said, "youVe been aw- 
 fully good to me — you and your father and 
 your friends. IVe had the one wonderful time 
 of my life this summer and I think you know 
 already how profoundly grateful I feel. It 
 makes me wonder sometimes if you'd be in- 
 terested in knowing the kind of work I'll have 
 to do after I leave here — and where Til be." 
 
 '"I'd like to know," the girl responded. That 
 was all she could say. It was as she had 
 feared. He would never see. 
 
 "I have to make some money — quick," the 
 boy went on soberly. "I haven't any now, as 
 I guess you know. All I own is my brain and 
 my hands. So I've come to the conclusion 
 that my best game is to get into metal mining 
 somewhere in the West. That's what I've 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 31 
 
 been messing around with at college and al- 
 though I just squeaked through I've learned 
 enough to make me see the big chances there 
 are in it. Of course, I could stick around here 
 in the East and get into coal mining or some- 
 thing like that but, from what I can see, there 
 wouldn't be any money in it for years and 
 years. Salaries are too low. There are too 
 many anxious young engineers. 
 
 ''On the other hand, if I go west, there's 
 always the chance that I'll strike it rich. Out 
 there, I guess, there's a temptation to settle 
 down in the rut just as there is here and that's 
 what I've got to fight. If I get into a big, 
 established camp like Butte or Bingham or 
 Cripple Creek it will probably mean much the 
 same kind of a beastly grind as if I were stuck 
 off in a coal town somewhere in the Pennsyl- 
 vania hills. But — the little camps ! The new 
 camps. The desert! The places where fel- 
 lows haven't been! That's where the big 
 chances are! Why — I might be able to find 
 something inside of six months that would 
 put me on my feet forever! I haven't a doubt 
 that I can make just as good pay in a new camp 
 as in one ten years old — and think of the 
 chances I'd have ! Don't you agree with me ?" 
 
32 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "I don't know/' the girl answered, miser- 
 ably. She wrapped her scarf around her 
 throat and stared out over the dark water. 
 All men were alike, it seemed. They thought 
 of nothing but their work — just as if work 
 were the chief end of existence. Life! Why 
 were they always forgetting that? Did they 
 think there was no art or honor in simply liv- 
 ing? Wasn't there just as much credit in 
 bringing another person happiness as in fight- 
 ing the world for years, making her wait and 
 suffer while you were getting rid of some 
 wrong-headed idea that wouldn't have harmed 
 you if you'd stayed at home? There were 
 always people willing to do the rough work on 
 the outposts of the world — who seemed to 
 choose the line of greatest resistance out of 
 sheer perversity. Let these people solve the 
 problems, if they must be solved. Let Donald 
 stay here. The problems would not be fewer. 
 They would only be lesser in degree. 
 
 Poor Alva! Struggling with the question 
 that woman can never answer. Rebelling 
 against the resistless urge of the creative in 
 man — the call of the forest uncut, the stream 
 unforded, the shaft undug, the trail unbroken 
 — the lure of the Open, the Unknown, the great 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 33 
 
 god Chance! Millions like her had rebelled 
 and millions were still to lift their plaint. 
 For it was as plain to her as to her uncounted 
 sisters that there were always stark, loveless 
 souls who could easily be the pioneers. And if 
 the tremendous work were not finished to-day, 
 why worry? The world would not immedi- 
 ately pass away. In the meantime at least two 
 people might be happy. 
 
 "I don't want you to misunderstand me,'' 
 the boy continued presently. "I only want you 
 to know this — that I will take any chance — go 
 anywhere — do anything to succeed. You may 
 think that I want the life out west for the ex- 
 citement but I don't. I only see that there's 
 something out there in those hills that I'm 
 going to wrench away. I think the reason 
 why more men don't get what they want in 
 life IS because they don't dare enough. If 
 they'd only put everything they owned on one 
 big gamble and push it through, they'd win. 
 Perhaps you think I'm reckless but it's reck- 
 lessness with a purpose. I'm simply going to 
 go and go until I find it or else drop." 
 
 Alva raised her head, surprised. This 
 wasn't what she'd thought he had in mind. 
 Until now he'd seemed only a magnificently 
 
34 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 lovable, big boy but here was a plan as practi- 
 cal as could be and she knew his bravery would 
 see him through. It was a new light which 
 the last few words had thrown on his purposes. 
 She saw him at last as a grown man and she 
 loved him the more for her surprise. If there 
 had been any doubt as to his ability to cut his 
 way through to success it had been dissipated 
 by his simple statement of the chances which 
 she knew undoubtedly existed, no less than by 
 his determination to keep on till he found what 
 he sought. It was a revelation in one way 
 for Alva but, in another, it made her more 
 miserable than before. The fact that he'd 
 carefully withheld his plans till now was only 
 one more proof that his summer had never 
 been as full of herself as hers had been full 
 of him. She felt again that women knew men 
 little better than men knew women. The 
 world might say that, to a woman, a man's 
 mind was an open book but it seemed to the 
 girl staring out into the darkness that it was 
 more frequently a secret chamber into which 
 he callously withdrew for his own purposes — 
 against whose iron door sweet intrusion could 
 batter her soft hands to no avail. And so 
 Donald's careful elaboration of his plans fell 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 35 
 
 upon deaf ears. Only two things were per- 
 fectly clear to Alva. He didn't love her and 
 — to-morrow he was going away. What else 
 mattered ? 
 
 She stole a look at him through the dark- 
 ness for she knew he could not see her brim- 
 ming eyes. He had dropped into silence and 
 was staring dumbly ahead of him as she had 
 stared. There was no moon and though they 
 sat with shoulders nearly touching she could 
 distinguish only the faint outlines of his figure. 
 Yet she knew well how he looked — the crisp, 
 blond head, the flashing smile, the frank, 
 strong eyes. The softly luminous shirt bosom 
 and white waistcoat of his dress clothes made 
 her see again his big shoulders and small waist 
 — she pictured him from head-top down to silk 
 shod feet and there was nothing she would 
 have added to or taken away. Yet she who 
 had always had everything she wanted till she 
 wanted the one thing that made everything 
 else of no value had to sit there wordless, with 
 happiness only an arm's length away, and feel 
 her heart turning into stone inside her. 
 
 Going away ! To-morrow he would be gone. 
 She turned away from him on the bench and 
 clenched her hidden hands. Far out on the 
 
36 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 dark waters a Sound boat whistled hoarsely. 
 ''Oi-Oi-Oi! He's going away — away!" An 
 ice cold mist stole landwards and seemed to 
 chill her soul and body. She shivered, 
 drowned in misery. 
 
 And so she was unaware, for a moment, of 
 an arm that crept towards her along the back 
 of the bench. And she had no ears, at first, 
 for a whisper or sense of a hand that groped 
 for hers and found it clenching her dress. 
 
 ^'Alva," said a voice. "IVe been trying not 
 to tell you but I can't stand it any longer. I 
 haven't any right to tell you even now for 
 I've nothing to offer except myself but if you 
 ever think of me when I'm gone you'll know 
 I'm working harder and longer because you 
 let me say it just this once." 
 
 The girl's heart gave one great throb, then 
 seemed to stop its beating. She sat without 
 moving. What kind of mad dream was this? 
 If she were really conscious then the impos- 
 sible had begun to happen. 
 
 And yet a hand was crushing one of hers 
 — was lifting it steadily, strongly to his lips. 
 An arm was stealing about her shoulders — an 
 arm that would not be denied but drew her, 
 trembling, nearer and nearer, — till she lifted 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 37 
 
 her head and saw his eyes. And then light 
 and life and the happiness that never was to 
 have been hers flooded into her soul. She 
 broke into a sob in his arms. Their lips met. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ABOUT two weeks after Donald Jaffray 
 left Madison for Salt Lake City some 
 white haired and wealthy gentlemen connected 
 with the sugar industry came to the depressing 
 conclusion that business conditions were very, 
 very bad and that they ought to sell some 
 stock. 
 
 In fact, they were so completely convinced 
 that people would presently stop eating sugar 
 that they said they were going to keep their 
 conclusions perfectly secret, which naturally 
 resulted in a widespread selling movement. 
 But after sugar had retrograded to the lowest 
 point in years conditions suddenly improved 
 — overnight. The white haired old gentle- 
 men, without a trace of a smile, advised each 
 other that they must have been badly mistaken. 
 Whereupon Sugar executed a right-about-face 
 and went up like a rocket. The Leigh for- 
 tune, however, came down like the stick. 
 
 There is not a great deal of difference, it 
 38 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 39 
 
 sometimes seems, between the loss of a fortune 
 and a death in the family. Friends and rela- 
 tives come to condole — a few wonder vaguely 
 if there is anything they can ''do'' and, being 
 informed in the negative, are vastly relieved 
 — those of a speculative turn of mind spend 
 long hours estimating the effect of the shock 
 on various members of the family — the world, 
 at large, keeps carefully out of the way so as 
 to spare itself. 
 
 At first, of course, there was a great deal 
 of sympathy for Rutherford Leigh as well as 
 for the girl who had once had everything. 
 People said he must have been very b^dly ad- 
 vised and didn't quite see how he hadrpanaged 
 to lose it ''all." When they learned^ there- 
 fore, that the Leigh fortune had been, for 
 years, only a steadily dwindling shell Ruther- 
 ford Leigh took on his true proportions in their 
 eyes. Men dismissed him with a sniff because 
 he was weak and a fool. The women, being 
 more practical, regarded him with uncon- 
 cealed abhorrence because he had secretly 
 lived up as well as gambled away his daugh- 
 ter's inheritance. 
 
 In this state of things there is small wonder 
 that Alva's Uncle Tonio, down in the city, was 
 
40 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 not able to do much more than assist in closing 
 up the Leigh affairs. It was very plain to the 
 girl now that Antonio De la Fuente had always 
 regarded her father with suspicion and though 
 he was kind to her he was barely courteous to 
 her father in all that had to be done in clear- 
 ing up the muss. There ensued, then, a heart 
 breaking time which extended into the late 
 fall. The Park Avenue property was put on 
 the market as quickly as possible and the house 
 at Madison, together with Alva's motor, was 
 sold. The Leigh collections of rare prints and 
 paintings, books, netsukes and bric-a-brac 
 were auctioned off at one-fifth their value. 
 Meantime, provision had to be made for life 
 under the changed conditions and so Alva went 
 flat-hunting for a week and finally found a 
 small apartment on the upper West Side where 
 the ridiculous inadequacy of the rooms was 
 partly atoned for by a hall-boy and a prison- 
 cell view of sky and river. 
 
 Here she took her father and, for a time, 
 was very well occupied in the multitude of de- 
 tails created by its furnishing. After that 
 many of her friends came back to town and 
 she took up again, though in restricted meas- 
 ure, the life she had lived before the debacle. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 41 
 
 Alva's friends wondered how she could take 
 it all so calmly. They didn't know the stead- 
 fast strain in the girl that called on her to stand 
 by her father and make the fight silently. Nor 
 did they know about Donald and, for reasons 
 of her own and Donald's, Alva didn't tell them. 
 All they could see was that a witless old re- 
 cluse had irretrievably ruined their friend's 
 future — unless some eligible young man put 
 in his prompt appearance. And so Natalie 
 Higgins, with the match-making instincts of 
 the engaged girl, spent most of the winter in 
 a labor of love which, greatly to that young 
 person's disappointment, proved quite fruit- 
 less. When at last the former schoolmate's 
 patience was totally exhausted Natalie spoke 
 her mind. 
 
 "I don't see what makes you so unreason- 
 ably contented," she railed. "By all the rules 
 of the game you ought to be wildly discon- 
 tented. You used to have everything and now 
 you've got nothing and it doesn't seem to make 
 one speck of difference. You may or may not 
 be aware that I think you're the grandest lady 
 in the world just because you do feel that very 
 good way, but all the same I can't understand 
 it. Why don't you call on some young Rub- 
 
42 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ber or Coal or Oil or Rapid Transit to solve 
 the problem of your future existence? Re- 
 member — I don't insist on your marrying any 
 of the prize packages / have produced. Per- 
 haps the last lot was too soaked with wealth 
 to be entirely human but all that Jim Warren 
 and I want you to do is to marry some one 
 right away quick." 
 
 After that there was no hope for it. The 
 story of Donald had to be told. But it was 
 told with a quiet earnestness in the voice and 
 a glow in the eyes that made the rather cal- 
 culating Natalie envy such all absorbing and 
 conspicuously unmodern faith. And so Alva 
 was permitted, after a loving hug, to go back 
 to her dreams and her letters and to be in- 
 dustrious socially only so far as the amenities 
 required. 
 
 Donald wrote at great length and not with- 
 out humorous appreciation of his vicissitudes. 
 After a few weeks in Salt Lake City he had 
 made the acquaintance of an ancient prospec- 
 tor named Swank and a capitalist named 
 Switzer and had paid the party's expenses into 
 the Deep Creek region to the west because the 
 ^'capitalist" was temporarily embarrassed and 
 they must stake out Swank's claims without 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 43 
 
 loss of time. But old Swank had somehow 
 been unable to find again the gulch in which 
 he had originally made his immensely valuable 
 discovery and Switzer had turned out to be a 
 charter member of the Ananias Club so, after 
 making an equal division of the outfit, at the 
 capitalist's delicate suggestion, the three had 
 parted and Donald had had his first experience 
 at prospecting and was stone broke. But this 
 was a condition which both Alva and he had 
 anticipated and it did not weigh heavily on 
 them. Alva only compressed her lips and set- 
 tled down to wait and Donald proceeded to 
 work his way lightheartedly across the hot 
 miles to Ely and the copper camps of eastern 
 Nevada. Here he stayed for the best part of 
 a year, writing her at frequent or infrequent 
 intervals according to whether he was working 
 in. a mine so as to save money for a prospect- 
 ing trip or was out on the "hike" with his 
 burros. Once or twice, he wrote, he had been 
 offered a position which might have led up to 
 a good salary but, as he took pains to remind 
 her, that was precisely the kind of delay he had 
 planned to avoid. Men all around him were 
 finding and selling valuable properties every 
 day, he said, and he meant to be one of the dis- 
 
44 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 coverers. Then came a long and dreadful 
 wait of six months, sterile of letters, and, as 
 if to compensate, a lightning flash out of the 
 blue in the shape of a telegram from Idaho say- 
 ing that he had found something at last and 
 was on his way to New York to negotiate its 
 sale. 
 
 Alva was waiting at the Grand Central Sta- 
 tion when his train came in. Their meeting, 
 which was observed by several hundred com- 
 muters and some red capped porters, was at 
 the least a pictorial success. After which 
 there was a profligate expenditure for a taxi- 
 cab and a joyful dinner at the Leigh apart- 
 ment, where Rutherford Leigh beamed on the 
 two out of his fast increasing mental haze 
 and shivered for the last of his objets d'art 
 whenever the younger man stretched his legs. 
 
 Donald was unquenchably optimistic. He 
 had somehow heard of a silver-lead mine up 
 in Idaho whose owners had run out of money 
 and might be approached on the subject of a 
 sale, and he had taken a chance and gone up 
 to examine it. It had needed only a cursory 
 inspection to prove its value, even though it 
 was twenty miles from the railroad and a good 
 strong bluff had put him in possession of an 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 45 
 
 option at a ridiculously low figure for sixty 
 days. He had promptly wired some class- 
 mates of his who were down in the ^^Street" 
 and was going to see them in the morning. 
 As for the future, there wasn't any doubt about 
 that any longer. The main thing now was to 
 have a good time whenever he could get away 
 from his deal while they were waiting for it 
 to be closed up. 
 
 And so Alva's period of waiting seemed not 
 so very terrible after all. And Donald's plan, 
 concerning which she had begun to have seri- 
 ous misgivings, had worked out in spite of 
 the slings and arrows of his first misfortunes. 
 As the wondering girl listened to the amazing 
 stories of his adventures and smiled covertly 
 at the undismayed power of the voice resound- 
 ing through the tiny room, where dinner was 
 generally as subdued a meal as breakfast, he 
 seemed for a moment to be almost a stranger, 
 so radically different was he in looks and view- 
 point from the boy of a year and a half ago. 
 But when her father excused himself and the 
 breezy young miner from the trackless desert 
 charged around the table and swept her up with 
 a chuckle of delight, the new light in his eyes 
 and the bronzed cheeks and unfamiliar clothes 
 
46 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 and the whole wondrously increased breadth 
 and strength of him were accepted without re- 
 serve as part and parcel of the new, successful, 
 love-hungry Donald, and she gave herself up 
 to his arms with a joy that grew with the feel- 
 ing that she was, in some way, being conquered 
 for a second time. 
 
 The first few weeks of Donald's negotia- 
 tions turned out, in spite of his irrepressible 
 optimism, about as might be expected. In 
 theory Wall Street is a place of enthusiasms, 
 but in practice at least one side of it is inhabited 
 by congenital pessimists. The other side, 
 after listening silently and very shrewdly, will 
 sometimes ofifer to furnish certain enthusiasms 
 of a stipulated length and breadth and color 
 — but only at a price. Donald discovered 
 slowly that the Street was less a place for buy- 
 ing than for selling, and that nearly every man 
 he met had something to sell. 
 
 Many of his old friends were, however, un- 
 affectedly glad to see him, though they said 
 very frankly that they didn't know much about 
 mines in Idaho and didn't expect to. Others 
 said it was very kind of him to drop in and 
 then made mention of the *'four thirty-two" 
 which they generally caught. Finally, when 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 47 
 
 three weeks out of the precious sixty days were 
 gone and the clouds had begun to gather, he 
 brought back the report to Alva that he had at 
 last, by the blindest kind of luck, run across a 
 man who took some interest. Caswell — a chap 
 he'd barely known at college but who, it 
 seemed, had followed his athletic career with 
 envy and admiration for the reason that he 
 himself was helplessly fat and hopelessly a hero 
 worshiper. So, then, there were many meet- 
 ings with Caswell, the fortunately rich, fat boy, 
 and some of CaswelFs friends and an engineer 
 whom some person of an investigating turn of 
 mind had thought to bring in at the last mo- 
 ment. And Donald took heart again, although 
 the engineer would need a dangerously long 
 time for his examination and report, and he 
 and Alva proceeded to give themselves up to 
 dreams while they waited. 
 
 By this time all of Alva's girl friends and 
 most of her bowing acquaintances knew that 
 she was engaged. The proportion of inter- 
 ested males, however, began rapidly to dwindle. 
 There were theater parties and dinner dances 
 to which she and Donald were asked, but while 
 she would have been considered a possibility 
 if the Leigh fortune had been in existence the 
 
48 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 combination of straitened circumstances and 
 an engagement ring put her out of the run- 
 ning. To which Alva objected not at all and 
 was even a little relieved when the invitations 
 slackened with Lent, and Donald stopped 
 drinking too much champagne. 
 
 Right here was something that worried the 
 girl not a little. It was not that his voice grew 
 thick or his limbs unsteady when he drank 
 something more than the social allowance, for 
 his big body seemed equal to almost anything, 
 but because he seemed, in some undefinable 
 way, curiously to coarsen. At such times he 
 had the unfortunate habit of retailing wild 
 stories of his adventures which held something 
 more than the flavor of purely animal spirits. 
 Few girls in Alva's position are apt to be 
 hypercritical and yet, now and then, Alva 
 seemed to catch a view of a rather undesirable 
 Donald — as if his stories opened a door through 
 which she could glimpse tawdry amusements 
 and questionable nights. 
 
 But it was not long before such questions 
 became of no importance beside that of the 
 deal down in the "Street." Caswell's engineer 
 had come back from Idaho with only ten days 
 to spare before the option expired and was 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 49 
 
 methodically drawing up an elaborate report 
 on what he had found, while Donald writhed 
 at the delay and demanded to know why the 
 old fool hadn't written out what he wanted to 
 say while he was coming east on the train. 
 Each morning of that last week Alva had a 
 telephone message from him saying that he 
 expected to close up the deal that day, and 
 every evening, without coming to see her, he 
 sent back a depressing report of interfering 
 engagements in Caswell's office, of men who 
 couldn't be got together and of a multitude of 
 unforeseen delays. Finally, one night at nine 
 o'clock the door bell rang and Donald appeared. 
 When she saw his face Alva knew he had 
 failed. 
 
 "Yes. It's all fallen through," he said 
 sadly as her arms went quickly round him in 
 the little hallway. "Caswell's engineer took 
 five days and fifteen typewritten pages to say 
 that the property was too far from a railroad. 
 When they heard that they said they hadn't 
 any doubt but that it would pay somebody to 
 work it, but just at present the state of the 
 market didn't allow their making any extensive 
 investments. They haven't got the nerve, 
 that's what's the matter," he broke out, with 
 
50 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 a flood of anger. "These measly pups that 
 have never been west of the Hudson River 
 think the West exists to bring them good 
 things without their raising a hand or risking 
 a cent. They think a fellow ought to hand 
 them a mine on a silver platter. They want a 
 big producer with a couple of millions in values 
 blocked out right at the back door of a smelter. 
 And then they want to give you a check on the 
 bank for a rubber nickel. They make me sick," 
 he snarled. "Thank God I don't live in this 
 rotten town and Fm going to pull my freight 
 out of here as quick as I can. Tve had enough 
 of their two-by-four ways and Tm going back 
 to God's Country and get some action on this 
 proposition. There's a man in Salt Lake 
 that'll listen when I talk and he likes to see his 
 money earning something for him. You 
 won't catch him trying to scratch the face off 
 a double eagle before he spends it. He's 
 a live one and a gambler. He'll grab this 
 property quick as a wink and I'm going to 
 make the jump out there to-night." 
 
 "To-nightr Alva gasped. 
 
 "Yes. Now" he answered, and she saw he 
 was haggard with worry. "I've bought my 
 ticket and checked my stuff. I made up my 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 51 
 
 mind this afternoon. IVe just five days in 
 which to make Salt Lake, get some money out 
 of this fellow and make a payment on my op- 
 tion. I ought to have tackled him long ago. 
 What a fool I was to come here, anyway !" 
 
 He rose to go, his hat in his hand. Then 
 his face worked strangely. He gathered her, 
 dazed and wordless, into his arms. 
 
 *'It's dreadful, dreadful, I know," he cried 
 brokenly. "But, what ever can we do? We 
 can't get married before I have some sort of 
 a home to offer you and I've got to take this 
 chance — perhaps another like it won't come up 
 for years. And the minute things are right 
 I'll send for you. We'll get away from this 
 rotten city and live out where people are big 
 and human. I'll have you West inside six 
 months just as sure as the sun will rise to- 
 morrow morning." 
 
 And then, with a sudden, joyful return to 
 the old Donald, in which were mingled the light 
 hearted boy of their wonderful summer and 
 the forceful, optimistic man of a few weeks 
 ago — 'They can't keep me down," he cried 
 and she felt his body tighten under her arms. 
 "I will succeed. It's in my bones. I'll go and 
 go and go. And every move I make, every 
 
52 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 dollar I earn will always be for you, Alva. 
 Now and evermore." 
 
 Down on the street a man came out of an 
 apartment building and turned towards Broad- 
 way. For a block or two he walked at a rapid 
 nervous pace and then his steps grew slower. 
 He stopped to light a cigarette and stood, 
 moody and irresolute, on a corner, his hand 
 closing over a small roll of bills in his pocket. 
 One by one his fingers counted them over and 
 separated out the few crisp fives and tens, 
 while his lips moved in slow calculation. 
 When he had made his total he shot a glance 
 up at the massive blocks of apartments around 
 him, and estimated their cost — and laughed. 
 His little roll of bills might as well be in the 
 river. 
 
 Stepping into a corner cafe he ordered a 
 drink and stared at himself dully in the mir- 
 ror. His train didn't go until midnight and 
 he had two hours to waste. It seemed better 
 to amuse himself drinking than to lie in his 
 berth with the thoughts of his failure eating 
 his heart out, and so, presently, he motioned 
 to the bartender again. There was no one in 
 the place besides himself and as, comforted 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 53 
 
 by his drink, he walked about nibbling at the 
 free lunch and glancing at the papers he 
 caught a glimpse of the back-room, with its 
 atmosphere of sequestered conversation. It 
 was a particularly inviting room, with low 
 burning lights in candelabra with colored 
 shades on the small, intimate tables and not 
 without suggestion of illicit acquaintance. 
 
 Something impish in its quick birth started 
 up in the man's mind. Something question- 
 able but luring, born of his late failure and 
 his drink and the recklessness that was as much 
 a part of him as his big limbs and hot young 
 heart. He opened the swinging door and 
 looked in. 
 
 A girl, conspicuously young and undeni- 
 ably good-looking, sat alone at one of the tables. 
 He caught a glimpse of a silken ankle, a 
 prettily rounded arm and white neck. The 
 delicious scent of Djer-Kiss was wafted to him, 
 stirring his blood. His eyes drew hers and 
 she looked up. Her glance was soft-eyed as 
 it rested on him and presently her fresh young 
 lips parted easily over exquisite teeth, and she 
 smiled. 
 
 "Lonely, are you?" she asked. 
 
PART TWO 
 
 THE WEST 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 WHEN Alva Leigh came home to her 
 apartment in the dusk of the late Feb- 
 ruary afternoon, she saw that her companion. 
 Miss Ferguson, had come in before her and 
 had lighted the electric above the little ma- 
 hogany table in the hallway, so that Alva 
 would not miss seeing the letter and roll of 
 papers that had come for her. 
 
 A few years before, Alva would have 
 opened both before she took off her overshoes, 
 or put her dripping umbrella in its stand, but 
 she was now in mourning for the third time 
 in her life, and she was also nearing the end 
 of her second year in the public library on 
 Forty-second Street, so that the arrival of 
 mail no longer seemed to call for instant in- 
 quiry into its contents. She glanced instinc- 
 tively at the address of the letter, however, 
 because she had not heard from Donald since 
 
2 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 September. But the letter bore only a New 
 York City postmark instead of one from Cali- 
 fornia, and she saw that it was from the firm 
 of Bagby & Vining, Attorneys and Counselors 
 at Law, 52 William Street. 
 
 Alva sighed. She realized that probably 
 old Mr. Bagby wished to tell her something 
 about her Uncle 'Tonio's bequests, and the 
 thought brought up poignant memories of An- 
 tonio De la Fuente's kindnesses to her, an or- 
 phan. 
 
 Alva's mother had been a De la Fuente, and 
 Alva's dark eyes and glowing pallor, and some- 
 times the carriage of her head, especially when 
 she was ofifended, proved her Spanish ancestry 
 beyond much doubt. When she had gone to 
 Farmington as a schoolgirl some ten years be- 
 fore, her chums had dubbed her '^Carmen'' al- 
 most on the first day, and had insisted on black- 
 browed poses, with a murderous-looking can 
 opener flashing out from under a petticoat 
 mantilla, while everyone else lolled on her bed, 
 applauded, and ate strange mixtures of sar- 
 dines and fudge. 
 
 But the Leigh part of Alva was measurably 
 the stronger, and it was because she had re- 
 sented Antonio De la Fuente's contempt for 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 3 
 
 her father's business ability that she had never 
 allowed her Uncle 'Tonio to help her. She 
 had always been fond of the quiet, dark little 
 man with the wise, wrinkled old eyes and sym- 
 pathetic smile, who shipped things back and 
 forth across the seas from his spice-redolent 
 offices down at Bowling Green, but the Puri- 
 tan strain in the girl insisted grimly on loyalty 
 to her father's memory, and so, when she had 
 been left alone in the world, she had preferred 
 to earn her own way instead of living on her 
 uncle's money. She knew that she had of- 
 fended the old gentleman terribly by so do- 
 ing, and she was sorry that this was so, but 
 she could not see that he respected her the less 
 for It. In fact, she saw now that they two 
 had always understood each other perfectly, 
 and when she went to dine with him at his 
 quiet hotel on Madison Avenue, or sent him a 
 gift at holiday time, it was with a genuine well- 
 ing up of affection whose only stumblingblock 
 was her pride. 
 
 Alva took off her street dress and freshened 
 herself. Standing before her glass, she saw 
 that she did not look as old as she felt to- 
 night — that she was as beautifully bodied and 
 as satin-skinned as anyone she knew, while 
 
4 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 the starlike eyes that burned back at her out 
 of the palely glowing face in the mirror were 
 strong with health and vitality. But this was 
 because she spent as much time as she could 
 in the open air. Several of her old friends 
 who had married well had places on Long 
 Island and in the Westchester hills, and Alva's 
 week-ends, when she took them, were packed 
 with exercise. 
 
 In town, however, her amusements were 
 few. Sometimes she lunched at the Holland 
 House and went to a matinee with Natalie 
 Warren, who persistently refused to give up 
 her old roommate, and always scolded her 
 roundly on the way home in the limousine, and 
 sometimes she dined with Sally Lowe and her 
 husband over on the Drive, because Alva's 
 father had once taken Sally abroad with them 
 as Alva's chum. But although Alva Leigh 
 could have gone almost where she liked among 
 the big houses that border on the park, she 
 had willfully allowed her circle to contract 
 year by year until she had almost dropped out 
 of sight. And now she was bereft even of 
 the Warrens and the Lowes, for Natalie was 
 up the Nile and Sally's husband had suddenly 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 5 
 
 made a lot of money, and carried her off to 
 Rome for a second honeymoon. 
 
 Alva thought of Natalie's last letter. Na- 
 talie knew why Alva had not married, and, 
 writing from Shepperd's before they started, 
 Mrs. Warren had expressed herself as finally 
 out of patience. 
 
 ''You have waited entirely too long," she 
 had said. ''No man nowadays has the right 
 to ask a girl to wait for him longer than two 
 years. Everyone knows that mining men 
 have their ups as well as their downs, but I 
 think it is too much to stake a woman's youth 
 against the possibility of finding some gold 
 some time, somewhere in a rock! Jim says 
 Donald ought to do his mining in Wall Street. 
 Forgive me, dear. You know how strongly 
 I feel." 
 
 Alva compressed her lips and went on with 
 her dressing. She wondered what Natalie 
 would have said if she'd known that Donald 
 hadn't written to her for six months. Then 
 she turned her back to the light over her dress- 
 ing table and opened Mr. Bagby's letter. 
 
 A few moments later Miss Nannie Fergu- 
 son, thin, fifty, and Scotch, whose ancient 
 
6 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 heart was still all unscarred by Man, received 
 a distinct shock. Alva Leigh was standing in 
 her doorway, her face ablaze with emotion. 
 
 '^Nannie," she said, in a constrained voice, 
 *'I think our troubles are nearly over. My 
 uncle has made me his sole heir!" 
 
 A moment or two necessarily had to be al- 
 lowed the cautious Scot before she accepted 
 the probability of this astounding statement. 
 But when the first outburst was over and they 
 were seated side by side on the narrow Fergu- 
 son bed, Nannie showed that her eye for the 
 main chance was by no means dimmed by the 
 glamour of such miraculous good fortune. 
 
 ''And now you can marry your man!'' she 
 said. 
 
 ''And now I can marry — marry Donald!'' 
 Alva repeated, and her face shone as if lighted 
 from within. "Oh, Nannie! Nannie! How 
 did you know?" 
 
 "Know?" echoed the Scotswoman. "I 
 know everything — and I know nothing. I 
 know that you've been truer to this invisible 
 young man for four long years than I fear I 
 would be to the Angel Gabriel if I saw him 
 every day. And I know that he must be a 
 verra extraordinary man for a girl like you 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 7 
 
 to be thinking about for so long, much to the 
 discouragement of others. IVe seen his pic- 
 ture, and he has a bonnie face. More I canna 
 say. Will ye no tell Nannie about him, dear?'' 
 
 Alva turned a suffused face, then dropped 
 her eyes and sought the other woman's hand. 
 
 ''Oh, Nannie, dear — it's been such weary 
 waiting!" she cried. *'I could tell you every 
 word he's ever said or written since the day 
 we met, and where I saw him first, and what 
 he thinks about, and how he talks, every ges- 
 ture he makes, every turn of his head! But, 
 oh — it all seems so far away now! I've 
 thought about him for so many days and 
 nights and weeks and months — I've thought — 
 I've thought — " Her hand went to her throat 
 as if she were suffocating. 
 
 "Child, you have thought too much," said 
 Nannie. *'Now that everything will turn out 
 right, you must take a rest from thinking. 
 You met him four years — no, five years ago — " 
 
 "Just after he came out of the School of 
 Mines. But he had nothing in sight at that 
 time — we knew we must wait. And so he 
 went West. Oh — he's so tall and so strong, 
 Nannie, and so recklessly brave! He would 
 go anywhere — do anything — to succeed, he 
 
8 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 said — and he has. But things have been 
 against him. Two years ago he came back 
 here to interest some people downtown in a 
 mine in Idaho — " 
 
 ''And to see you." 
 
 "And to see me. But he couldn't get them 
 to do anything — ^he went away very badly dis- 
 couraged.'' Alva's voice deepened, her face 
 shadowed, she seemed on the point of enter- 
 ing her state of gentle melancholy again. 
 
 *'Sakes alive, child!" cried Nannie, with a 
 vigorous shake. "What do ye care about that 
 noo? Can ye no buy him all the mines there 
 are in this Idaho with your bright new siller? 
 But I'm thinking you two will have little to do 
 with mines from now on. You'll bring him 
 back soon?" 
 
 "He'll come back — he'll come back as soon 
 as a telegram can reach him and a train can 
 carry him East!" Alva cried, throwing out 
 her arms. "And then, Nannie!" A realiza- 
 tion of how completely the making of their 
 happiness now rested in her hands swept over 
 the girl and her voice failed her. 
 
 Nannie Ferguson gently stroked the hand 
 closed tight on hers, and studied the girl's 
 face. She loved Alva very much. The girl's 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 9 
 
 nature was the most unselfish she had ever 
 known, and added to the courage and high- 
 mindedness that everyone recognized at once, 
 Alva had an infinite number of lovable ways 
 that showed themselves in the smaller things 
 of life. 
 
 When Nannie had first come to live with her 
 two years before, she had been surprised to 
 find a woman with Alva's connections moving 
 in so small a social orbit without serious dis- 
 content. But she had learned little by little 
 that while Alva was tremendously sensitive as 
 to her father's financial collapse and her al- 
 tered position, yet she never allowed these 
 things to afifect her relations with those around 
 her. People who did not know Alva Leigh 
 intimately sometimes thought her peculiar, but 
 Nannie had found that this was due to the 
 girl's unfailing faith in the man she had set 
 her heart upon. Alva's pride forbade her tak- 
 ing up her old life again until she could do so 
 as a successfully married woman. There was 
 nothing more than that. The girl had simply 
 been holding fast with unswerving allegiance 
 to the chance for happiness that the future 
 must bring. 
 
 But the shrewd Scotchwoman had never al- 
 
10 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 lowed her affections to warp her abilities to 
 analyze, and she had been aware for some time 
 past that the girl's attitude toward Donald 
 Jaffray was undergoing a serious change. It 
 was only natural that Alva should brood, but 
 when Nannie saw that the girl was beginning 
 to think more of marriage than of the man, she 
 began to feel frightened. She knew the force 
 of the girl's character, sweet-natured though 
 she was, and she was afraid that it was being 
 turned in the wrong direction. Alva's single- 
 mindedness on the subject of her future 
 life seemed about to turn into plain obses- 
 sion. 
 
 But that grave danger was over now, thank 
 Heaven! And the wonderful light that shone 
 in Alva's face was only a faint promise of the 
 transfiguration soon to take place. 
 
 '^You darling woman!" Nannie whispered 
 softly. ''You — with your head like a Span- 
 ish queen's, and your beautiful, strong body, 
 and your wonderful love that's like both a 
 sweetheart's and a mother's for your boy! 
 Why ! if I were a man, with a man's blood and 
 fire in me, wild horses couldn't have torn me 
 away from you! And just to think that now 
 you're to be married, after all!" 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST ii 
 
 "Married, after all!" cried Alva a little 
 wildly, while Nannie bit her lips over the un- 
 fortunate phrase, "and why not? Haven't I 
 waited? Haven't I been true? Haven't I 
 loved him since the day we met? Life prom- 
 ised him years ago and life must give him to 
 me now. Only one thing in the world can in- 
 terfere. It's the very thing that has kept us 
 apart, but it shall do so no longer. I've given 
 him my youth to satisfy his pride — now he 
 must stop our senseless sacrifices and listen to 
 reason. It's time for us to live. Life is slip- 
 ping too fast out of our fingers! I shall de- 
 mand — " 
 
 "Child! Child! What are you saying?" 
 Nannie interrupted, with a frightened gesture. 
 "You'll no be 'demanding' anything. Sit 
 down again and calm yourself. Your good 
 news has upset you." 
 
 Alva held her hand over her eyes for a mo- 
 ment and pulled herself together. 
 
 "Nannie," she said, with a sobbing laugh, 
 "I'm so happy that I guess I'm losing my 
 mind." 
 
 "You'll not lose your mind while Fm here," 
 said Miss Ferguson forcefully. "You'll feel 
 better after we've had our dinner." 
 
12 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 The girl bent down and kissed the faded 
 cheek. 
 
 ''Look at me, Nannie/' she said, with shin- 
 ing eyes. 'Tm all right now. I lost my hold 
 on myself for a moment, but it won't happen 
 again. Perhaps our troubles were ended too 
 quickly — or perhaps Tve always imagined 
 them greater than they really were. At 
 any rate, the sour, dour Alva that youVe been 
 good enough to live with for two dark years 
 herewith flits away, never, never, never to re- 
 turn." And Alva whirled out of the room 
 with a paean of joy. 
 
 "I'm going to see what's in this paper," 
 Nannie heard her saying, in a voice like a 
 song. 'It's a marked copy of a little news- 
 paper they publish out there in that new 
 mining camp. I've had them before, and 
 they're screamingly funny." She came back 
 into the room tearing the wrapper from the 
 paper and rolling it into a ball to hurl at 
 Nannie. 
 
 "Just think of the fun if Donald had struck 
 it rich, after all !" 
 
 "Aye," said the Scotchwoman. "I've heard 
 of the West. 'Tis a place where strange 
 things happen." 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 13 
 
 And then she looked up and saw that some- 
 thing strange was happening there in her own 
 room before her very eyes. For Alva, with a 
 bloodless face, was sinking slowly to the floor. 
 
 Donald had met with an accident. Donald 
 had been shot. 
 
 Donald was dead. 
 
 Old Mr. Bagby, of Bagby & Vining, sat in 
 his office waiting for Antonio De la Fuente's 
 niece to be announced. 
 
 He had had charge of his friend De la 
 Fuente's legal matters for a great many years, 
 nearly half a century, in fact, and in that time 
 he had come to know all that there was to 
 know concerning the De la Fuentes and the 
 Leighs. He had not seen Alva, however, 
 since she was a girl of eighteen and, as usual, 
 he expected to see her comparatively un- 
 changed. He was prepared, of course, to find 
 her spirits affected by her uncle's death, but 
 he did not imagine that they would be per- 
 manently dampened. 
 
 He was much surprised, therefore, to find 
 Miss Leigh not only a grown woman, but also 
 one who, he saw at once, had lately experi- 
 enced a very great shock. As he pressed her 
 
14 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 hand for a moment with his soft, old fingers 
 and smiled comfortingly and led her to a chair, 
 he felt that the intense sadness in her face 
 could not have been caused entirely by her 
 uncle's death. 
 
 And so he spoke pleasantly of the last time 
 he had seen her — only a year or so ago, he 
 said, at which Alva smiled faintly — and told 
 her of an act of kindness that her father had 
 once done him in their early life, and very 
 soon established an entente cordiale such as 
 old gentlemen, when they are deft as well as 
 kind, have a way of bringing about. 
 
 And presently the talk turned on her uncle's 
 affairs, and Alva learned that the business of 
 De la Fuente y Cia was being continued as 
 before — that it was a very profitable business 
 — and that while she was now a wealthy 
 woman, she would undoubtedly be much richer 
 as time went on. Mr. Bagby was one of the 
 executors under the will, and an officer of 
 the company, and all her interests were being 
 scrupulously cared for. After which she 
 found her Uncle 'Tonio's old friend mention- 
 ing other things that did not greatly matter, 
 and giving her opportunity for any questions 
 she might like to ask. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 15 
 
 "I have decided to go away for a time/' 
 Alva said finally, at which Mr. Bagby nodded 
 approvingly. 
 
 ''Abroad, no doubt," he said. 'Tlease do 
 not hesitate to have this office, or your own, 
 help you in making your arrangements. Of 
 course, you know you can spend virtually any 
 amount you choose." 
 
 "I am not going abroad," Alva answered. 
 *'But I should like you to give me some money, 
 and I shall leave instructions with you as to for- 
 warding my mail. I shall also make my will." 
 
 Mr. Bagby gravely inclined his head. He 
 was beginning to surmise that the saddened, 
 but remarkably fine-looking. Miss Leigh was 
 a purposeful woman. 
 
 "I should like to have the will drawn up 
 now, if I may — and make the other arrange- 
 ments, too." 
 
 "All that will be done immediately," Mr. 
 Bagby said. ''Would you care to tell me 
 where you are going? And how long you may 
 be gone?" 
 
 "I am going to California — to a place they 
 call 'Death Valley/'' Alva said. "That is 
 why I wish to make my will. It may be that 
 I shall never return." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ANIGHT wind, sweet with sage, streamed 
 down the slopes of the Funerals and 
 pulsed across a valley that had not yet been 
 named. Concentrating at the mouth of Dead 
 Horse Canon, whose winding cut through the 
 sandstone led down to a vaster and still more 
 barren basin beyond, its quickening breath 
 stirred the flames of a fire crackling in the 
 sand of the wagon road, and whirled the sparks 
 aloft in a gleaming spiral. 
 
 It caught up a whirl of dust, too, and flung 
 it spitefully into the face of a woman who 
 stood waist deep in the greasewood, staring 
 into the fire with wide, frightened eyes. 
 Then the space-filling whir of the wind died 
 away and the valley grew silent again — silent 
 and impenetrable under a starless pall. Only 
 there came from a distance the spasmodic gal- 
 loping of a team of horses still held together 
 by fragments of harness, and, from near by, 
 the ironic crackle of flames around the name 
 board of what, a little while before, had been 
 
 i6 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 17 
 
 the two-seated Magnet Stage with its load of 
 mail and baggage — "Passengers and express 
 carefully transported between Amargosa and 
 Death Valley." 
 
 With the slackening of the fire, the woman 
 raised her fascinated eyes from the ruins, and 
 moved a few steps away, striving to follow 
 the vague ribbon of a road that faded into the 
 west. As she stood so, staring hopelessly into 
 the darkness, a sound of feet plodding through 
 the soft, stone-crusted surface of the plain came 
 to her ears. Another moment and the bulk of 
 a horse and rider loomed up in front of her, 
 grotesque and misshapen in outline. Dis- 
 mounting a few feet away, the horseman left 
 his animal standing with down-dropped rein, 
 and came forward. 
 
 They faced each other across the embers of 
 the fire, a tall woman with a queenly head of 
 dark hair and dark, steady eyes, and a man a 
 year or two her senior, whose oil-smeared 
 khaki and flannel shirt indicated employment 
 near by, just as his quiet face promised hon- 
 esty. Oddly enough, there was no need of 
 explanations as to what had happened, for 
 the stranger seemed to have a complete un- 
 derstanding of the situation. Her frown re- 
 
i8 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 laxed almost immediately when she saw his 
 face in the firelight, and she went to him, point- 
 ing to a huddled shape a few feet away in the 
 brush. 
 
 "The driver is over there'' she said, un- 
 conscious of her low-voiced, tragic tones. 
 *The horses kicked him in the head when they 
 ran away." 
 
 "ril look at him," the man answered pleas- 
 antly, but without haste, and he musingly 
 touched a loop of glowing baling wire with the 
 toe of his boot. "It will be 'Alkali BilF— 
 judging from general results. Whisky and 
 cigarette sparks seem to have been right ac- 
 tive to-night. You carried some hay, I see." 
 
 "He would smoke — and drink," she stated 
 tensely. "Before I knew it, we were all 
 ablaze." 
 
 The man bent over the body and struck a 
 match. She could see him only dimly as he 
 knelt down, trying to catch a heartbeat, but 
 once she was certain that she saw him study- 
 ing his watch, which she thought curious. 
 When he came forward again, he no longer 
 wore his coat. 
 
 "He's in bad shape — well have to get him 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 19 
 
 later/' he said briefly, and she felt herself 
 maneuvered into a position where the firelight 
 shone directly on her face. ''Did you save 
 any of your baggage?" 
 
 "All I had/' she answered, conscious of his 
 eyes. "A shawl strap and a suit case. I was 
 very fortunate." 
 
 ''Yes, ma'am. Very lucky," he responded, 
 in his easy way, and still studied her over the 
 hand that stroked his down-drooping, yellow 
 mustache. "If you don't mind, perhaps we 
 could be going on about now. Magnet's not 
 far. ril get my horse." 
 
 With the animal standing beside her, she 
 looked up into its owner's face with an ex- 
 pression of surprise. The unknown Samari- 
 tan's actions were so direct as hardly to give 
 her time to appreciate their purposes. 
 
 "Am / to ride ?" she asked, and then realized 
 that the question sQunded foolish, even in her 
 own ears. 
 
 "If you please, ma'am," as he shortened the 
 stirrups and held one of them for her. "You 
 might hold your suit case in front of you on 
 the pommel. The other can go behind. 
 There you go! Fine!" And after a rapid 
 
20 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 fastening of the shawl strap at the cantle, he 
 turned away from the fire, leading her mount 
 by the rein into the vague roadway. 
 
 The woman balanced her luggage on the 
 rocking pommel as best she could, and gave 
 herself up to wonder. Hardly ten minutes 
 ago she had been marooned on an unknown 
 desert in impenetrable darkness. Now she 
 found herself suddenly picked up and carried 
 on her way again with a swiftness of action 
 as unerring as it was amazing. It was a 
 far cry from the security of last night's Pull- 
 man to riding out, she knew not with whom 
 or whither, into this wide-stretching, unknown 
 land where the very bulk of the wind meant 
 vastness, and she felt her courage falter. 
 Then it leaped up again stronger than ever as 
 they gained the summit of a swell, and saw a 
 blurred gleam of white in the distance. 
 
 "Is that Magnet?'' she asked, the words 
 breaking from her with a cry. 
 
 Unstartled, the man let her animal come up 
 to him, and answered her with thought, or 
 else its amused counterfeit, in his tones. 
 
 ''Well, now — it is little, isn't it?" he mused. 
 "However could I have figured it was a 'city' ! 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 21 
 
 But we're only a year old, ma'am. We'll 
 grow." 
 
 He continued to walk at the horse's head un- 
 til the blur took on the shape of tiny one and 
 two-roomed tent houses, scattered along a 
 street of two short city blocks in length, which 
 faded away up the western slope of the valley 
 towards an opaque sky. 
 
 They paused again, and the woman stared at 
 her goal with a clutching around her heart. 
 
 ''You have friends here, have you?" the 
 man asked, in a detached tone. 
 
 ''No. No friends," she answered help- 
 lessly, unable to take her eyes off the place 
 she had thought of, night and day, for so 
 many months. 
 
 "H'mmm!" he mused. "In that case, you 
 will not be accustomed to the ways here." 
 There was light enough from the tents now to 
 see her face, and he looked up with a direct 
 and succinct remark: "This is no pink-tea 
 place." 
 
 "I know that," the woman answered curtly, 
 then bit her lip. Not yet there — and she had 
 already made a misstep. 
 
 But her guide only nodded pleasantly. 
 
22 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "Still — a pink tea would be a mighty interest- 
 ing affair, I judge. The postmaster's wife 
 could just about die from attention, 'most any 
 day, as it is." 
 
 Her hand went up to her cheek in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 "Are there no other women? I thought I 
 saw one at the door of a tent.'' 
 
 "Mrs. Baker and you will be the only ladies, 
 ma'am," he answered definitely. "I'm taking 
 you to her place." 
 
 Up the straggling street between the glow- 
 worm tents the woman rode in the soft spring 
 night on the stranger's horse, acutely observ- 
 ant of every make-shift for comfort seen 
 through open doorways, keenly conscious of 
 men — nothing but men — around her, behind 
 her, in front of her; dawdling on doorsteps, 
 passing by in the darkness in murmuring twos 
 and threes, clustered around the bars of 
 saloons where raucous-voiced phonographs 
 guttered forth their travesties on music, and 
 drunken songs and still more drunken laugh- 
 ter roared up to God's clean stars, now gleam- 
 ing whitely overhead. 
 
 Again the unfamiliar feeling of helpless- 
 ness clutched at the woman's heart. Men — 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 23 
 
 nothing but men — men in the rough, like the 
 mines that had given this mushroom its riot- 
 ous growth, and she only a solitary, friend- 
 less woman, with merely a purpose, which al- 
 ready seemed more like a forlorn hope, to hug 
 to her breast for company. 
 
 At the end of the street her guide halted in 
 front of a one-storied, unpainted frame build- 
 ing and spoke to a woman seated in the door- 
 way. 
 
 'T guess you won't get a whole lot of mail 
 to-night, Mrs. Baker," he said, in his pleasant 
 voice. 'TVe brought you a boarder, instead. 
 This lady has come to Magnet — to — to — '' 
 He paused and turned around. 
 
 *To stay,'' the woman on horseback sup- 
 plied firmly, but without sharpness. *Tf you 
 don't mind, I'd like to get down." 
 
 "Why, yes. Come right in," Mrs. Baker 
 responded, in matter-of-fact tones. "You 
 can sleep on a cot in the mail room, dearie. 
 The Palace Hotel hasn't established its branch 
 here yet. Where's the funny old mail, Mr. 
 Randall?" 
 
 "Burned up, along with the stage," he an- 
 swered, as he carried the baggage through the 
 post office into a lighted room beyond. 
 
24 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ^'Alkali's been playing tricks on us again." 
 
 'That's twice this year already/' the 
 motherly-looking postmistress mused. "Folks 
 will be complaining soon. Will you take your 
 hat off, dearie? It's certainly a good thing 
 Mr. Randall managed to find you — out there 
 in the desert and all." 
 
 The traveler removed her hat and looked 
 up at the tall man who had brought her safely 
 through the darkness. 
 
 Her first impression, now that she could 
 see him clearly, was that he was thoroughly a 
 man in face as well as in figure. His nose 
 was sensitive and straight. His mouth, half 
 hidden by the drooping, fine-haired mustache, 
 she could not see, but his chin, indented, was 
 unquestionably a chin, and his fine hazel eyes 
 were both luminous and steady. In spite of 
 his working clothes, he looked very clean, and, 
 in some indefinable way, almost certainly a 
 gentleman. 
 
 Her second impression, which came from 
 something behind his repose of manner, was 
 that this gravely smiling man, who seemed to be 
 studying her closely for a second time, was to 
 become either her very good friend or else 
 something radically different. A third im- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 25 
 
 pression, which she did not care to retain, was 
 that his was the stronger personaUty of the 
 two. 
 
 But while she was speaking her thanks, all 
 these appraisals were forgotten in a handclasp 
 so firm and wonderfully sympathetic as to 
 pour a warming current of life into her tired 
 body. 
 
 "Don't thank me, ma'am. A woman at 
 Death Valley is worth even more than water — 
 and thafs fifteen dollars a barrel! Why — if 
 I don't hurry along right now for poor Alkali, 
 there'll be a committee camping on my trail 
 with a wine supper !" He retreated, laughing, 
 to the edge of the darkness, and picked up his 
 horse's rein, swinging up to the saddle as easily 
 as if it were early morning. 
 
 "So long, Mr. Randall," called the frankly 
 admiring Mrs. Baker. "Get that Baker of 
 mine away from the 'high card' long enough 
 to help with Bill!" 
 
 "Good night," the Samaritan responded. 
 He drew the rein against his animal's neck to 
 wheel away, then paused and looked back with 
 a sudden tenseness of pose that seemed to 
 make his farewell carry the more surely past 
 the postmistress to the traveler. 
 
26 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 *^Good night — Miss Leigh." 
 
 The woman in the doorway drew back with 
 a gasp and stood there, staring mutely, until 
 the other woman woke her from her amaze- 
 ment and led her to the room where she was 
 to pass the night. 
 
 He had spoken her name! 
 
 And in this manner Alva Leigh came to the 
 mining camp of Magnet, on the edge of Death 
 Valley, unheralded through three thousand 
 miles of travel, only to hear her name spoken 
 out of the darkness on the first night by an un- 
 known man whom she might never see again. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IN the morning she rose early, glad to escape 
 the unfamiliar angles of the Baker cot, 
 and studied the town from the doorway, her 
 thoughtful face brightening at the wild fresh- 
 ness of the air and the wonderful, clean sun- 
 light. 
 
 Before her a single street of tents — tent 
 stores and garishly fronted tent saloons — ran 
 down a gentle slope into a gray-green valley 
 of plumy sage and greasewood, whose other 
 side was a range of barren, chocolate-colored 
 rhyolite. Beyond this, one after another, 
 sterile chains of hills, yellow and flaring red 
 and bluish gray, reared their spiny backs in 
 serried rank until, across a vast, twinkling 
 desert, the snow-tipped spear of Charleston 
 Peak emerged from the mists and hung like a 
 cold, white cloud, high in the sky. 
 
 Although her journey had left her by no 
 means unprepared for the sight, the search- 
 ing light of morning brought home the vast- 
 ness of the view and its cruel barrenness with 
 
 27 
 
28 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 unescapable force. Coming out of a land of 
 little hills, always decently garmented with 
 earth, she found herself set down in the midst 
 of great ragged ranges as naked as the teeth 
 of a saw. All her life Alva had been among 
 green things, living things, houses, factories, 
 stores, smoking chimneys — within hearing dis- 
 tance of people and the world's noises. Here 
 was none of that — no green on the bare- 
 toothed mountains — nothing of life and its 
 activities beyond an occasional sound from the 
 street — nothing to dispel a frightening sensa- 
 tion of loneliness in this vast, thirsty land of 
 reds and yellows, where daring men braved the 
 perils of heat and silence to dig ore out of the 
 hot hills, live a few vivid years of work and 
 reckless pleasure, and then withdraw again, 
 leaving behind them their youth, some holes in 
 the ground, and a grinning stretch of sand 
 and hills that would keep on grinning until the 
 Judgment Day. 
 
 She looked again at the town with its dis- 
 maying clutter of ramshackle wagons, broken 
 boxes, refuse, and glittering tin cans — at the 
 unfamiliar head-frames of the shafts — at the 
 figures of men in their working clothes now 
 turning out for the morning drink and break- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 29 
 
 fast, and wondered — wondered where she was 
 to begin. 
 
 With breakfast over, she turned to washing 
 dishes as the easiest route to the knowledge 
 that she must have, and, in due time, found 
 part of it. 
 
 *'Baker was wondering last night what you 
 were figuring to do here,'' the postmistress re- 
 marked leadingly, as her observant eyes roved 
 over Alva's handsome face and noted her 
 ready disposal of the kitchen tasks. "But I 
 told him you were looking for work, like as 
 not." 
 
 ''Yes. I expect to work," was the immedi- 
 ate reply, for Alva's instinct told her that she 
 must justify her presence in Magnet without 
 loss of time. 'T must work at something right 
 away. You all 'take a chance' out here — and 
 so will I." Which facile expression of West- 
 ern philosophy in her own voice so amazed her 
 that she flashed a warm smile at the other 
 woman, and thereby cemented a friendship al- 
 ready in the making. 
 
 Yet Mrs. Baker's legitimate curiosity was 
 not entirely appeased, and she let fall another 
 remark. 
 
 "Not knowing where you come from, and 
 
30 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 nothing about you, I couldn't see it was a whole 
 lot of Baker's business," she continued. 
 ''Mebbe she'll run a little store, I says — or 
 mebbe a boarding house. No woman, I says, 
 is coming into this layout of country without 
 knowing her own mind, you bet. 
 
 "Now, a boarding house — well — that would 
 be my choice. Not a single, solitary one here 
 to-day except 'Stingy Pete's' short-order dump 
 back of the Red Onion, and that's only Tee 
 bones — French fried — Eggs-any-way — and 
 Coffee.' And, say! For a single girl, what 
 with these rich Easterners and mining men 
 coming here in their automobiles a-looking at 
 mines, and all the nice young fellows working 
 round — well, a boarding house, for real, high- 
 toned society and money, surely does look 
 good to me." 
 
 Alva Leigh, listening intently as she dried 
 dishes, thanked her stars that Magnet held a 
 Mrs. Baker. But she knew that, while her 
 purpose might always be her own, she could 
 not keep silent about herself forever, and so 
 expressed her surprise at the difference 
 between New York and the West in various 
 vague ways that intimated future confidences. 
 
 "But it's a hard life," the Westerner said, 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 31 
 
 as she paused in her work and stared thought- 
 fully out of the window at the lifeless hills. 
 ^'JvLst why Baker and me stick at it — I dunno. 
 Times we make a little money on a claim or 
 something, and times we don't. Times we live 
 down to *Los' in a bungalow, with roses and 
 geraniums smothering you to death with their 
 funny smells, and other years we're out on the 
 desert, polishing the head of a drill. 
 
 ^'But if Magnet makes good, we'll be fixed 
 till kingdom-come, I guess. Baker's got good 
 ground, and he's sure the ore is right. I only 
 hope we can make some Easterner think so, 
 too. They're getting to know entirely too 
 much about mines, back there. One of them 
 came here last winter in tortoise-shell eye- 
 glasses and a thousand-dollar fur coat to look 
 at our ground, and what do you suppose he 
 said? 
 
 " 'Ah, ha !' says he, looking at me over his 
 glasses like a wise little pig that's been fooled 
 once on cactus. 'But does the ore go down, 
 Mrs. Baker? That's the point on which you 
 must satisfy me. Does it go down?' 
 
 '' Well,' says I, kind of tired, T don't know 
 what you learn in your little books back East, 
 but it's a lead-pipe cinch it don't go up, dearie !' 
 
Z2 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 And with that he shut himself up in his big 
 coat, and wouldn't peep. 
 
 ''Baker only laughed when I said Td spoiled 
 his sale. Baker ain't bad — for a man. He's 
 a Native Son of the Golden West, and he 
 knows our luck will turn. Most likely he's 
 testing it out on the wheel right now. We 
 won three hundred last night. 
 
 ''And yet I sort of like it all," Mrs. Baker 
 went on, unmindful of the amazement in 
 Alva's face. "It seems like this desert coun- 
 try gets a hold on you just because there ain't 
 anything here! If I told anyone that I liked 
 hot rocks better than trees, or sand better than 
 nice green grass, they'd think I was crazy. 
 But you'll see, dearie. You'll get to like it, 
 same as me." 
 
 "Is Magnet a healthful place?" Alva asked 
 presently. "Do many people die here?" 
 
 "Die? What for?" responded Mrs. Baker 
 absently. "Oh, a few get shot up sometimes, 
 and they were finally obliged to hang one man 
 that pestered another fellow with an ax. The 
 cemetery's right out behind us on the hill — 
 you can see the headboards from the back win- 
 dow. Mostly, the eppygrams are fairly con- 
 siderate. It's all over when he's dead, you 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 33 
 
 know. But Magnet's a pretty decent place — 
 for a camp where there ain't any law." 
 
 'What did you say?" Alva asked sharply. 
 
 *'No law, I said. No sheriff — no justice — 
 no police — no nobody. But we get along. 
 The Committee fixes things up, mostly. If the 
 Local decides against a man, he has to go, 
 and go right away! They sent out two this 
 last week — fifty miles to the railroad — and no 
 water!" 
 
 *'Has there never been a sheriff?" Alva 
 asked, while she tried to keep something out 
 of her voice that persisted in creeping in. 
 
 *'Not that I ever heard of. He's generally 
 over at Independence, the county seat — four 
 days' journey," the other woman answered, 
 with a wondering glance at Alva's depressed 
 face. "Oh, don't you worry, dearie. Noth- 
 ing can happen to you. Give Magnet a little 
 old-fashioned home cooking, and these men 
 will rob a bank for you." 
 
 Alva spread her dishcloth out to dry on the 
 window sill. "I think I'll take a walk up on 
 the hill," she said. "I'd like to get a view of 
 the town." 
 
 The Westerner nodded appreciatively. 
 
 "Yes. Go look round a bit," she said, in 
 
34 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 her big, friendly way. ''Go up on the top of 
 the hill and look down into the valley. You'll 
 see hell, then — sure enough/' 
 * 'What valley V' Alva asked, without thinking. 
 
 "Death Valley. There ain't but one,'' was 
 the reply. "But don't look at it too long. 
 Folks have to keep happy out here," and Mrs. 
 Baker's shrewd eyes seemed trying to read the 
 girl's thoughts, "or else they go to brooding 
 and get queer. But you won't be that kind, 
 I guess. You're going to have luck in this 
 place. I'm thinking you'll go out of here a 
 great deal happier than when you came in." 
 
 Alva went out of the door with the hon- 
 estly meant words repeating themselves over 
 and over in her mind. Magnet and luck! 
 Death Valley — and happiness! It was en- 
 tirely possible that she might have luck, but 
 it would be of a peculiar kind. 
 
 Five graves in all raised their small mounds 
 in the scattered brush of the hillside, and, after 
 looking about her to see if anyone were watch- 
 ing, she paused by the first, and read its in- 
 scription : 
 
 Jim Bellingham, 
 
 Died January 21st. 
 
 God gives a good deal to an honest dealer. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 35 
 
 Alva wondered — and passed on, her brows 
 darkening, her Hps compressed. She saw that 
 there were points of view that she would have 
 to learn. Another grave, and she read : 
 
 Swiss Bob. 
 Fired his last shot, August 12th. 
 First man dead in camp. He went loco. 
 Some says heat — but we bet on whisky. 
 
 The woman made an involuntary sound of 
 disgust. Why did men say such cruel things 
 about one another? Had they no sense of 
 decency or fitness ? Yet the sardonic note did 
 not escape her — a grim jest at the perils of 
 this dreadful place where men never had been 
 meant to live. 
 
 Two more mounds, with later dates, came 
 under her eyes, and then, a little apart from 
 the others and set in the soft, sandy earth be- 
 low a reef of copper-stained rock, a headboard 
 on which the writing, although dimmed by the 
 elements, stood out with a clearness entirely 
 sufficient : 
 
 Donald Jaffray, 
 
 February lOth. 
 
 Found shot. 
 
 ''Found shot," 
 
36 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 Well — at least there was nothing unneces- 
 sary written there. 
 
 Staring, dry-eyed, at the thing she had come 
 those thousands of miles to see, the woman 
 found herself thanking God that here truth 
 had guided the writer's hand without a tre- 
 mor. It was well worth her journey — worth 
 all such troubles, past and to come — to find 
 above his grave anything so packed with 
 meaning as those two short words, for, to 
 Alva Leigh, they meant justification. Just as 
 she had always known since that dreadful day 
 a month before, Donald had been murdered — 
 brutally and with malice aforethought — and 
 he who had shot him had run away. 
 
 Alva raised her head and looked out across 
 the wide cup of the valley at the serried 
 ranges. Wherever she dwelt again in mem- 
 ory's dreams, it was far from Magnet, for 
 there were trees and grass and blessed water 
 before her eyes, and murmuring in her ears 
 a lovable, boyish voice, impetuously vowing 
 something over and over again. Once more 
 she saw him in all the splendor of his youth — 
 tall, strong, alert, bright-haired, bright-eyed; 
 a joking, fearless, impetuous man-boy, whose 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST ^ 
 
 tremendous physical vigor had been as much a 
 source of fear for him as it had been a 
 fascination in his love. Precious years of 
 companionship, the ecstasy of being needed by 
 another human, the fulfillment of life's pur- 
 poses, the wider existence — these were the 
 things, then, of which this place, had robbed 
 her, for they all lay buried forever in the 
 mound beneath her feet. 
 
 Yet, after all, it was the conviction of per- 
 sonal outrage that had most brought about her 
 coming to this place. While Alva Leigh was 
 as completely removed from vindictiveness as 
 a woman may be, her passionate nature in- 
 sisted that when life offered her the most de- 
 sirable of all its gifts, and man ruthlessly 
 swept it away, then someone beside herself 
 must suffer. 
 
 But as she stood there on the hillside, she 
 felt the tumult of her feelings gradually sub- 
 side. At least one part of her task was 
 done — she had found him. As to the rest of 
 it, she realized very sensibly that only the 
 merest beginning had been made. To learn 
 all that she must know — to act on it and bring 
 it to a just conclusion — would take time and 
 
38 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 thought and care. Therefore, she would be 
 thorough and unhurried. Her day would 
 come — she had no fear of that. 
 
 And so this was where they had buried 
 him! — here on these bright slopes where he 
 had penciled his last letter to her months 
 ago — here where he would be always looking 
 out on the mystic desert twinkling at his feet. 
 And, after all, what better place? Where 
 would she herself have laid her lover down 
 for his last sleep but on this sun-warmed hill- 
 side, where his brave, steady eyes could gaze 
 forever on the soft lure of the mountains and 
 his beautiful body lie, dry and unsullied, in the 
 virgin sand he loved? — a clean, warm wind- 
 ing sheet for one who had striven for her 
 gain and her happiness in this frightful place, 
 only to be wantonly cut down. 
 
 She thought of Mrs. Baker's prophecy. 
 
 "Then I wish for luck! God grant me 
 luckr she cried bitterly, but shuddered at the 
 meaning she put into the bright word. "I will 
 sow my life away in chances — only let me 
 reap!" 
 
 As she turned away, a sound of voices came 
 to her. Two men came into view on the dike 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 39 
 
 of rock above her, and stood with their backs 
 toward her, absorbed in conversation. 
 
 ''Leaving out the ground we're standing on, 
 you can have the other five claims for a thou- 
 sand dollars apiece," said a voice that she rec- 
 ognized. 'TVe been figuring to hold out this 
 one for myself.'' 
 
 "And let us do your prospecting for you," 
 was the intelligent response, as the other broke 
 a fragment of ore over a sharp rock and 
 weighed it instinctively in his hand before he 
 studied it. "Come, now. Why don't you put 
 a figure on this claim, too? I'll be perfectly 
 frank and say it's the best of the lot." 
 
 "You don't have to be frank," was the 
 amused reply. "I know it's the best. But I 
 have another purpose for this ground." 
 
 To Alva, listening, came the realization that 
 with the opening of a mine on that spot, the 
 little cemetery would almost certainly pass out 
 of existence. A faint chill stole over her. 
 What would these men do to her grave ? 
 
 "It might make all the difference to us," the 
 other urged, with a note of warning. "Think 
 it over." 
 
 "No use. I can't," came the answer, 
 
40 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 tensely spoken. "The ground's too good. 
 The man who originally owned this claim — '* 
 
 The speaker paused as he became conscious 
 of Alva, and she felt a pair of luminous hazel 
 eyes center on her and instantly widen. Even 
 before she could incline her head, he was leav- 
 ing the other man and coming toward her 
 with undisguised pleasure lighting up his face. 
 Afterward, she remembered that, as this fine 
 figure of a man strode across the rubble of 
 rock, his eyes held hers so strongly as to be 
 all of him that she really saw. 
 
 "I hope Magnet looks a little better to you 
 than it did last night," he said, looking down 
 at her with a warming smile, and somehow 
 they were standing together with hands 
 clasped as if they had been old friends. 
 "Now that you're to be here for a while or so, 
 you mustn't be too hard on us." 
 
 More than the words alone, the optimism in 
 his face and voice acted on Alva like a jovial 
 challenge, forcing her to throw off her melan- 
 choly. She caught, too, his appreciation that 
 she was different from the others in Magnet. 
 But this was not a matter for elation, for she 
 felt that she was no more than on an equal 
 footing with himself. An impression of the 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 41 
 
 night before was crystallizing into the knowl- 
 edge that they two were of one kind. 
 
 The keen-eyed Eastern engineer, loitering 
 near by, instinctively looked himself over at 
 the sight of a woman and gave a constructive 
 touch to collar and tie. Meanwhile, he fur- 
 tively admired the large eyes shining out of 
 their dark circles and the momentarily dra- 
 matic pose. 
 
 "Tragedy,'' he said to himself, and thought 
 of paintings he had seen. "Tragedy, past or 
 to come, or I've never seen it. Good stuff in 
 her, all right. But she's too high tension — 
 needs a 'step-down' — she'll burn herself out 
 and get the 'loco.' " Then he bowed and 
 walked over, at the other man's nod, to be 
 presented. 
 
 "Miss Leigh — Mr. Garcelon, of Boston. 
 You Easterners really ought to know each 
 other as soon as possible — for protective pur- 
 poses, I reckon." 
 
 "Are we going to let him classify us this 
 way without protest, Miss Leigh?" the ap- 
 praiser of mines asked quizzically, as he smiled 
 over her hand. "I've been trying hard to be 
 a Westerner for twenty years, and this is my 
 reward — to have my unfortunate choice of a 
 
42 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 birthplace flung in my face at every turn. 
 Are you foolishly hoping to deceive them, 
 too?" 
 
 ''Yes, indeed," Alva answered, with an 
 amused gleam in her fine eyes. 'T'm a West- 
 ern woman from to-day forward. But don't 
 let me interrupt. Wasn't somebody buying 
 something?" 
 
 'Well — I was trying to buy a cemetery for 
 some friends of mine back East," the engineer 
 responded jocularly. "But Randall, here — 
 confound him — won't sell out." 
 
 Alva felt a change come over the Western- 
 er's manner. He seemed to retard the hu- 
 mor in the other's eye while he made a grave 
 reply whose poignancy was not lost, at least, 
 upon the woman. 
 
 "Many a mine is a graveyard out here," he 
 said soberly, "but sometimes we're just a little 
 slow about reversing the two." He opened 
 out his hand with a slow gesture of pity over 
 the mound across which, Alva realized with a 
 pang, they two had just now greeted each 
 other. "These fellows all tried to do some- 
 thing — ^here in this God-forgotten country — 
 against big odds, I reckon — ^but they got tired 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 43 
 
 out. Perhaps — ^perhaps they'd like it if we'd 
 let them sleep." 
 
 Alva's eyes filled with tears, and she looked 
 away toward the mountains. But she heard 
 the thoroughly practical Easterner's surprise: 
 
 "You don't mean to say you'd let a little 
 thing like a grave — " 
 
 'Well — for a while or so, at least," was the 
 answer, and Alva knew that the transaction 
 was ended. 
 
 Conscious that their thoughts had taken an 
 unexpected turn, the three began a slow re- 
 turn to the town. Alva felt herself buoyed up 
 by the virility of the two men and a conversa- 
 tion that had suddenly turned humorous. 
 And while she followed the good-natured ban- 
 ter of East against West, she remembered that 
 it might defeat her purposes to seem either 
 nervous or worried. The things she had to 
 do would take time. And so she entered into 
 the amusing duel of wits with not a little pleas- 
 ure, with the result that when she parted from 
 them at the Baker doorstep, the middle-aged 
 Easterner bowed impressively and took his 
 leave in his best manner. He wondered, as he 
 departed, if Magnet would see what he saw — 
 
44 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 a place and a woman related one to the other 
 in no conceivable way. 
 
 Alva made a delaying gesture as the other 
 of the two was about to leave her. 
 
 "IVe been wondering a little how you knew 
 I was Miss Leigh/' she said, curiously. "I 
 didn't know that Td mentioned my name to 
 anyone here. Not that I wouldn't give it" — 
 she smiled, for there must be no mystery — 
 "only, it seemed rather queer." 
 
 "Yes." He nodded appreciatively, al- 
 though he did not meet her eyes. "I under- 
 stand. And you will be thinking about last 
 night, too. But if you will write your name 
 on a tag on your baggage — " His fine white 
 teeth showed pleasantly in a smile over her 
 perplexity, and he made the short open-handed 
 gesture that seemed to do duty for so many 
 words. "Out here ladies' names are easily re- 
 membered. But I will be going — about now," 
 and his luminous eyes shone a temporary fare- 
 well. "Remember — I'm counting on you to 
 let me help!" 
 
 "A nice man. A real nice man," the ob- 
 servant Mrs. Baker remarked, as Alva re- 
 entered the house. "He's the biggest man in 
 camp." 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 45 
 
 "What does he do?" asked Alva, for she 
 knew that the time had come when she must 
 learn everything about Magnet that was to be 
 known. 
 
 "Dick Randall is hoist engineer for the Cac- 
 tus Mining Company," replied Mrs. Baker 
 promptly. "They're sinking a double-com- 
 partment shaft over in the North Gulch. 
 From what I hear the men say, they'd rather 
 work in the bottom of a shaft with Dick Ran- 
 dall's bucket hanging over them than any other 
 man's in camp. He's a worker, and he don't 
 drink. He's got the judgment, too — that's 
 why he's president of the miners' Local here. 
 And these miners wouldn't elect anybody who 
 wasn't right. He has too much power, you 
 see. Whatever Dick Randall says goes in 
 Magnet — and no mistake about that!" 
 
 For a second time that day Alva felt herself 
 singularly fortunate. If she had read aright 
 the frank interest with which the man re- 
 garded her, she had made something more 
 than an ordinary friend of the one person who 
 could tell her all that was to be known. She 
 began to feel, too, that he was one whom she 
 might trust unquestioningly. 
 
 "Has he always been a hoisting engineer?" 
 
46 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 she asked, with an interest that gave her a 
 twinge. 
 
 "How do you mean?" was the puzzled 
 query. "You mean — was he up in the world 
 once — and down now? There ain't any good 
 in those ideas, dearie. A man's a man — or he 
 ain't! I guess he's got education enough for 
 any woman — if that's what you're looking for. 
 Dollars don't count for much out here, where 
 a bum of a prospector can turn into a million- 
 aire overnight. Randall's got claims enough 
 — and good ones, too." 
 
 Alva, on her way back to her room, paused 
 to think of a way to appease the offended West- 
 erner, and then went on, her mind suddenly 
 centering itself on a clear-cut recollection that 
 drew her dark brows into a frown of per- 
 plexity. 
 
 Her baggage — the shawl strap and suit case 
 — lay open on the floor of her room where she 
 had left them. Around the handle of each 
 she saw a piece of heavy twine and the eyelet 
 of a card-board tag. It was quite true that 
 she had written her name on the tags, as he 
 had said, but it was also true, now that she re- 
 membered it, that she had destroyed the tags 
 when she had left the train two days before. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 47 
 
 As she stood there wondering, Mrs. Baker's 
 voice came to her through the open doorway: 
 
 ''Randall's going to make more money than 
 any of us. He's relocated that cemetery claim 
 that belonged to a young fellow named Jaffray, 
 that got shot. Dick Randall is an able man/' 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHEN Alva came to look back on it, the 
 most surprising phase of her estabHsh- 
 ment in Magnet was the ease of its accomphsh- 
 ment. 
 
 Blewitt, the professional optimist in the 
 Town-site office, promptly leased her "the best 
 corner lot in town — until we strike the sul- 
 phides." He also attempted a series of social 
 calls in the evening, until Alva positively dis- 
 claimed all intention of buying Magnet real 
 estate for permanent investment; whereupon 
 the town-site man's optimism in both Love and 
 Realty waned perceptibly and he finally ex- 
 hibited a picture of his wife. 
 
 From the lumber yard, gleaming yellow in 
 
 the gray-green flat below the town, came a 
 
 discursive, calculating individual named 
 
 *'Andy," pleasantly redolent of sawdust, whose 
 
 ever-present foot rule estimated successfully 
 
 on a dining-room, kitchen, and living tent, with 
 
 all materials supplied and work done. 
 
 A half hour in Palestine with Bindelmann, 
 48 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 49 
 
 of the Magnet Mercantile Company, brought 
 an efficient six-hole range by special freight 
 from somewhere in the outer world four days 
 later. 
 
 The water man, whose teams brought Mag- 
 net's only supply from the spring at Ash 
 Meadows, forty miles away, calculated Alva's 
 needs at one barrel every two days, and said 
 it would be only fourteen dollars *'to a lady" 
 and "no hurry about payment." Alva's inter- 
 est was evenly divided between the water man's 
 uncanny ability to drive twenty fractious ani- 
 mals with only a jerk line, and the astounding 
 fact that he was making enough money to keep 
 his daughter at a Conservatory. 
 
 The firewood difficulty, although apparently 
 insurmountable, was finally solved by a young 
 Mormon teamster who came to her rescue after 
 her first collection of odds and ends had roared 
 up the chimney. The boy, although not yet 
 twenty-one, was pathetically strong in a faith 
 whose strange tenets Alva strove in vain to ap- 
 preciate, and was soon to be sent by his bishop 
 on a ''mission" to far-away Denmark, without 
 the formality of even learning the language. 
 Meanwhile, he drove unmeasured miles across 
 the desert daily, and by his own confession dug 
 
50 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 Alva's firewood out of the ground with a hoe ! 
 Which accomplishment did not diminish her 
 respect for either his superior religious knowl- 
 edge or his tenacity of purpose. 
 
 Shortly after this, a middle-aged person 
 called "Sarah," with stringy, iron-gray locks 
 and a suspicious nose — but who had "stopped 
 drinking now" — suddenly appeared from no- 
 where at all and announced that she had come 
 to do the cooking. With this last important 
 asset obtained, and the hiring of two vague- 
 faced waiters from the underworld of hobo- 
 dom, Alva found her curious establishment 
 complete. 
 
 "But don't you pay any of 'em one red cent 
 till you get a good stake, Alva," Mrs. Baker 
 warned innocently, as the two women sat to- 
 gether on a pile of fragrant lumber in the sage- 
 brush and watched the dazzling white canvas 
 of the dining tent being drawn over its frame- 
 work. "Let 'em take a chance. We all do. 
 Baker's out rustling boarders for you right 
 now. He's got Levy Brothers of the Bon Ton 
 Store promised good and hard, three nice 
 gamblers from the Green Front, and a very 
 good-looking man that they think robbed the 
 Mohawk Mine in Goldfield, who has lots and 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 51 
 
 lots of money. He was figuring on bagging 
 two Swedes that came in last night, too, but I 
 says, *No. Swedes eat all the ketchup. Just 
 get white men for Alva. She'll have enough 
 as it is.' And so you will. You'll take in a 
 hundred dollars the very first week and be all 
 clear by the end of the second. You just see if 
 you don't." 
 
 The two weeks were over now, and Alva 
 stood in her doorway in the late afternoon won- 
 dering how it all had happened. Not only had 
 she twice as many boarders as she needed for 
 appearance's sake, but this remarkable busi- 
 ness seemed virtually to run itself, or else there 
 was some wonderful stimulant in the wine- 
 sweet air that made her act and think without 
 an effort. But presently it came to her, since 
 pride in her success as a boarding-house keeper 
 had no place in her underlying intention, that 
 she had not done it at all, but that those who 
 knew had come and, with clear-sighted, efficient 
 honesty, had done it all for her. 
 
 The afternoon sun softened and colored the 
 bright ranges with slanting, wine-purple 
 shadows. The panorama of flaming buttes 
 and valleys and wide deserts turned into a vast, 
 soft fairyland, where unfamiliar peaks swam 
 
52 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 into view a hundred miles away through the 
 haze, glimmered for a time, and then, suddenly, 
 were gone, and dry lakes shimmered and lured 
 and in their turn faded slowly from sight. 
 
 Alva's bosom swelled with a full inhalation 
 of the sweet, keen air, while her limbs quivered 
 with a moment's flashing joy in mere living. 
 With clear, strong, newly brightened eyes, she 
 searched her view hungrily for the fanciful 
 mysteries her imaginative nature loved to cre- 
 ate among those distant, blue-hazed hills, ex- 
 alted by the mere sense of illimitable distance. 
 She wondered how people could do wrong in 
 so wonderful a land. How could men be 
 wicked where the world was so wide and si- 
 lent and where a human being was so very 
 small? As for herself, it was like a great 
 temple where she could worship silently, with 
 the ever-whirring wind for a resonant-voiced 
 chorister beneath a blue-vaulted roof that 
 arched up from gleaming colonnades of hills. 
 
 The sun sank lower. The castled peaks 
 marched forward in the reddening light, stood 
 still, then dwindled away. The sky was a tur- 
 quoise dome behind a bank of golden-crested 
 buttes. *Tt's the outer gate of heaven," she 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 53 
 
 whispered to herself. ^Tt brings me close to 
 God." 
 
 Then her eyes strayed north to the canon 
 where Magnet's basin, narrowing, ran down to 
 Furnace Creek and Death Valley. With its 
 last slant the sun streamed through a split in 
 the darkened western hills and smote the red 
 porphyry cliffs of the gorge with a blaze of 
 fiery light. Alva shuddered. Seamed like a 
 drunkard's cheek and pitted as if with disease, 
 the flaring cliffs that led down to the shunned 
 place below seemed like a row of hideous ward- 
 ers at the gate of hell. 
 
 She turned her eyes away with a tremor of 
 fear. The contrast between the frightful 
 gorge and her beautiful, wide vista of a mo- 
 ment ago seemed to her the contrast between 
 life and death, or purity and sin. She felt 
 as if she had been sitting alone at night by her 
 window and an evil, frightfully scarred face 
 had suddenly leered in on her. Her exaltation 
 left her abruptly, while her sense of im- 
 agery remained. She began to see this 
 town of Magnet as she had seen her two 
 views — a place of vivid contrasts, of horrors 
 and beauties, of boundless generosity and hot- 
 
54 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 blooded crime, of abrupt changes from right 
 Hving to wrong Hving, where strong men grew 
 stronger and weak men weaker, and, above all, 
 where he who would live happily must keep 
 himself quite sane and pure of heart. 
 
 But among all these things Alva could see no 
 danger for herself. She knew her nature and 
 her purpose to be sufficiently sane. There was 
 no danger that she would obtain a jot more 
 than was her due. An eye for an eye and a 
 tooth for a tooth. Some one man to pay with 
 his life for Donald's. And she would find him 
 — if not in Magnet then elsewhere. Mean- 
 while, she thanked God that the righteousness 
 of her purpose would keep her sane. 
 
 All things considered, she felt that she had 
 been very successful since she had come to 
 Magnet. Only two weeks had passed and she 
 already knew the name of every man who had 
 been in the camp in February and who might 
 know how Donald had met his end. Three 
 men, in particular, she felt might have some- 
 thing to tell her. One of these was a sharp- 
 faced young miner named Duncan, who seemed 
 in some uncanny way to read her thoughts 
 whenever she spoke to him. Without having 
 mentioned Donald's name to him, she felt. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 55 
 
 nevertheless, that he had divined the reason 
 for her presence in the camp, and until she 
 could test him to her own satisfaction, she was 
 wary of trying for the knowledge which he 
 often seemed on the point of imparting. 
 
 Another of the three was a product of the 
 saloons — Danny the Bum — half-witted, bleary- 
 eyed, unshaven, unbelievably dirty and forlorn, 
 whose mental fumblings produced a strange 
 mixture of useless fact and fancy concerning 
 Donald, which always began and ended with a 
 vivid recital of his generosity. But just what 
 form this trait had taken Alva could never as- 
 certain. Try as she would, she could extract 
 nothing further from the ill-starred but cau- 
 tious Danny than that Donald, true to his na- 
 ture, had been reckless with his nights. 
 
 The third of her possibilities was Richard 
 Randall. 
 
 Alva wondered how the man had come to 
 acquire Donald's claim. She knew enough 
 about such things now to see the great value 
 of the ground, and yet the transfer of this par- 
 ticular property was decidedly vague. But be- 
 cause she must have a clew, she must disregard 
 nothing, and she soon decided again, as she had 
 decided many times before, to ask him about 
 
56 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 it. At first this seemed an easy thing to do, 
 for she had never forgotten the sudden glimpse 
 of his nature that the man had given her when 
 the sale of his property had seemingly hung in 
 the balance. She even liked to repeat what he 
 had said: "Perhaps they'd like it if we'd let 
 them sleep.'' 
 
 But after all, was that everything he had 
 said? Hadn't he also said: *1 have another 
 purpose for this ground?" When she coupled 
 this sentence with the sudden disbelief that he 
 would refuse a good price simply because of a 
 grave, she began to feel disturbed. Poetical 
 ideas, she knew, had scant circulation in Mag- 
 net. She began to suspect that she had in- 
 vested her Samaritan with altogether too much 
 of the romantic. And so, once started on this 
 moody road, she proceeded to go farther, and 
 in due time had stripped him mercilessly of one 
 charitable motive after another, until the ugly 
 question again came up as to how he had 
 known her name on that first day. 
 
 Right there she decided finally and abso- 
 lutely, as she had already decided a correspond- 
 ing number of times the other way, to ask him 
 nothing. While there might be a multitude of 
 ways in which he could have learned it, yet the 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 57 
 
 damning fact remained that he had Hed about 
 it, and the restraint that sprang from this was 
 sufficient to keep them apart on the subject. 
 Yes, and if she could manage it, on other sub- 
 jects, too. 
 
 But there were still some things which 
 puzzled her, and she went into her kitchen, 
 where the gray-haired old woman sat on the 
 doorstep peeling potatoes. 
 
 "Sarah," said Alva pleasantly, "tell me who 
 sent you here to work for me." 
 
 "Dick Randall, of course," Sarah answered 
 promptly. "He made me cut out the booze, 
 too," she added cheerily. " 'Sarah,' says he, 
 'your pretty daughter, Rosie, in Bullfrog, was 
 a-askin' f er you, Sarah — and I told her she had 
 a good old ma who'd be back home soon with a 
 big stake to help make clothes for the baby.' 
 And say! You oughter see me give them 
 saloon men the laugh then! Babies always 
 did beat whisky, anyhow." 
 
 "Sarah," said Alva again, after a thought- 
 ful moment, "don't you think that fifteen dol- 
 lars a month is very little to pay for leasing this 
 lot from the Town-site Company?" 
 
 ''Town-site!" echoed Sarah, in genuine 
 amazement. "Why, this lot ain't the Town- 
 
S8 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 site's! Whoever told you that? This lot be- 
 longs to Dick Randall! Fifteen dollars a 
 month! I should say that was cheap !" 
 
 'T thought so, too/' said Alva quickly. 
 'Tlease say nothing about it." 
 
 There seemed to be little need to probe far- 
 ther into the ease of her establishment in Mag- 
 net. Even the question as to why the water 
 man sold her on time instead of for cash was 
 fully answered. A faint color rose in Alva's 
 creamy cheek. Then her attention was called 
 to a woman who was idly looking in at the door, 
 with a curious, ruminating expression on her 
 face. 
 
 This woman, whom Alva had never seen be- 
 fore, was both tall and conspicuously well fig- 
 ured. Her face was strong rather than weak, 
 although the generous mouth was cynically 
 curled at the corners, and her large, washed- 
 out blue eyes seemed to hold a mingling of 
 yearning and resentment as they appreciated 
 the well-kept interior. Her head uncovered, 
 was a mass of blowsy, not unattractive red hair. 
 She seemed to be still in her twenties. 
 
 As the woman's eyes rose to hers with lan- 
 guid insolence, Alva felt every muscle in her 
 body tighten. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 59 
 
 "Hullo," said the woman, regarding her with 
 interest. '1 was just passing by. Thought 
 rd look in." 
 
 Alva knew what was meant. '1 have heard 
 about you and I'm here to see what you are," 
 was what the red-haired woman might as well 
 have said. Alva inclined her head and felt 
 that she was being looked over. Presently it 
 seemed as if there was something more than 
 decent curiosity in the woman's face. Alva 
 blazed with anger. Her eyes grew larger and 
 her eyebrows level, as was their way. Her 
 face flushed in spite of herself. 
 
 "Well — you're surely a good-looking wom- 
 an," the other said bluntly, and the bold 
 eyes wavered as if she felt the contrast be- 
 tween Alva's satiny skin and her own coarsely 
 marked, though handsome, face. "I guess 
 you're a good woman, too. It's handy to 
 know who is and who isn't in this hell hole," 
 she laughed unmirthfully. "Well — so long. 
 Most likely you want to work. Wish you 
 
 luck. Be sure you make the d d rats 
 
 pay their way." And with this venomous ad- 
 vice she turned away, picking a path between 
 the bushes and heaps of glittering bottles to- 
 ward the lower purlieus of the town. 
 
6o HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 Alva dropped a sidelong glance and saw old 
 Sarah staring after the stranger with her lips 
 parted in a snarl. 
 
 "And to think that she spoke up to the likes 
 of your the old woman gritted savagely. 'I'd 
 like to tear her eyes out! But it'll wait, I 
 guess. She'll get hers — some day. Old 
 Mister Barleycorn will ketch her soon. Those 
 piano-playing, singing women get nutty streaks 
 on the men the same as you and me, and when 
 they can't get the one they want, they go to 
 drinking. It's the talk round town that this 
 one — 'Tiger Lil' — is gone clean daffy over 
 
 Dick Oh, my! There you've gone and 
 
 shook your tea canister all over my nice, clean 
 floor! Well, never you mind one bit, Miss 
 Alva. You let me sweep it up." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MAY had come and gone, taking with it 
 what few sweet odors of spring had 
 struggled unequally for life in the valley, and 
 brazen summer refracted hotly from the hills 
 and blazed down from every flaming butte. 
 
 All through the long day the mountains had 
 been gauzy with a haze of heat, and as Alva 
 came homeward from Mrs. Baker's in the early 
 evening, the star-shot night was still, even of 
 the ever-whirring wind. 
 
 From where she walked in the safe center of 
 the street, she could see Magnet, with its lamps 
 lighted, leap feverishly into its course as a 
 roaring, flaring *'boom'' camp. All around 
 her in the warm darkness were voices and 
 laughter, carried through the thin, still air as 
 over water — a sense of constant movement — a 
 ceaseless ripple of pianos — grotesque shadows 
 passing and repassing on the walls of the glow- 
 worm tents — the whir and clatter of the rou- 
 lette ball in the shouting saloons. 
 
 Spring and **the ore'' had brought prosper- 
 6i 
 
62 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ity to town. Automobiles without number, 
 from the older camps of Tonopah, Goldfield, 
 Manhattan, and Rhyolite, stood in front of the 
 stores, their engines throbbing, their headlights 
 cutting long paths down the dark street. An 
 odor of good cigars was abroad. Eastern 
 voices talked incisively of '"options," "groups," 
 and "sulphides." Stout, ruddy-faced men 
 with well-trimmed white mustaches were 
 pointed out to unshaven ones in prospecting 
 boots; whereupon the boots sauntered with 
 well-feigned casualness in the direction indi- 
 cated. Now and then a roisterer on the out- 
 skirts emptied his revolver at the stars. 
 
 Magnet was "on the boom," and Magnet, 
 rioting along with all the arrogance of new- 
 made fortunes, was well aware of it; where- 
 fore the night must be a time for fun too long 
 postponed. And so, through all the action and 
 full-blooded life of the moment, a sense of joc- 
 ularity was everywhere round about, and heard 
 above it all by each eager ear was the whir of 
 the wings of Chance. 
 
 Unmolested in her quiet passage of the 
 street, Alva paused in her doorway and looked 
 back. Never before had she felt so completely 
 outside of all these people's lives. Something 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 63 
 
 perilously like bitterness rose to her lips at the 
 contrast between her purpose and the frankly 
 pursued ends of those around her. She sud- 
 denly longed to be at one with Magnet, for all 
 its fantastic promises and lurid ambitions. 
 At least, its ideals were healthy, even if their 
 probable attainment might be questioned. 
 
 She raised her arms above her head with a 
 thrill of yearning for action and a part in the 
 bright game, if only as an outlet for her 
 abounding vitality. The chrysalis was break- 
 ing at last. Never a day came in this wide 
 land but the sun shone mightily and the wind 
 blew. And as it streamed to her through the 
 fingers of the hazy peaks, keen and dry and 
 tanged with the scent of far-off worlds, it 
 seemed searching out the lifeless things of 
 memory to blow them away with the dried 
 leaves of yesterday. 
 
 She thought of Natalie, who was now in 
 Italy — Mr. Bagby had forwarded her last let- 
 ter from Ravenna — and she wondered what the 
 Warrens, especially the easy-going, matter-of- 
 fact Jim, who always let things ^'work them- 
 selves out,^' would say if they knew the strange 
 life she was leading to-day. She had told only 
 a very few people that she was going to Cali- 
 
64 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 fornia, and only Nannie Ferguson and Mr. 
 Bagby had her postoffice address, so that at the 
 most her old circle would think she was at 
 Pasadena or San Diego. People were asking 
 about her, however, for the fact of her inheri- 
 tance had been paragraphed in a society jour- 
 nal of which she had a copy, and her name had 
 already been linked tentatively with several 
 men of her old set who were indubitably in 
 need of money. 
 
 The article itself was only a hint of the 
 sumptuous life in the East that she was confi- 
 dently expected to enter upon without delay, 
 but it was enough to bring it all vividly back, 
 and she began to wonder a little why she no 
 longer hungered for those luxuries which her 
 wealth and position could now give. She real- 
 ized that, a few years before, if she had not 
 been in love with Donald, she would unques- 
 tionably have accepted the life and its men as 
 representing all she mundanely desired; but 
 when she considered it all to-day, she felt that, 
 while she would frankly welcome the feminine 
 side of that soft existence, she would probably 
 find the masculine part of it strangely dissatis- 
 fying. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 65 
 
 At first she very naturally laid this at the 
 door of her age, for she was now twenty-seven, 
 but gradually it was borne in on her that Mag- 
 net had wakened her to a new and truer con- 
 ception of life, and that her unconscious de- 
 mand for fiber in the masculine was at least 
 one result of the desert's teaching. Putting 
 aside for a moment the sad tangle of ideas so 
 persistently connecting Richard Randall and 
 Donald, she delighted in imagining circum- 
 stances under which such women as Natalie 
 and Sally Lowe might meet her tall Samaritan. 
 She fancifully placed the desert man in situa- 
 tions where only inherent grace of mind could 
 preserve him from feminine damnation, and 
 smiled to see him emerge from the ordeal 
 faintly amused and wholly unscarred. And 
 again she saw his quiet eyes, with their wealth 
 of reserve power, resting calmly on some able, 
 keen-sensed gentlemen she knew, only to feel a 
 glow of confidence in his thorough understand- 
 ing of men, whoever they might be. It was 
 undeniable, of course, that the man's source 
 and his unfamiliarity with the lighter things 
 that would always be part of her woman's life 
 were definite quantities, but these had not been 
 
66 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 included in Alva's estimate for some time past. 
 Life in Magnet had shown her the greater 
 value of certain fundamentals. 
 
 But she was very lonely to-night, and her 
 thoughts eventually turned on herself and the 
 ever-present problem. She began to speculate 
 again as to the matter of Donald's claim. Al- 
 though he had never alluded to it at length in 
 his letters, except to speak of its great value, 
 it occurred to her that she might find a clew 
 somewhere in the packet hidden away among 
 the few possessions she had brought, and on 
 her way through the dining tent she paused to 
 light a lamp, so that she could bring the let- 
 ters there to read. When she returned, a fa- 
 miliar figure was standing, hat in hand, in the 
 doorway. Without knowing why, she hid the 
 letters in her dress. 
 
 "Magnet might be called a little noisy to- 
 night," he said, as he came forward at her wel- 
 coming smile to where they had sat many times 
 before with her oil-clothed table between them. 
 "A lot of claims have changed hands lately. 
 Some of the boys are cutting up. I hope no 
 one is bothering you." 
 
 ''No. You're the first to-night," and her 
 touch of fun found a reflection in his own swift 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 67 
 
 smile. 'Tf you stay too late, Til notify 'the 
 committee/ But how does a man get a claim, 
 in the first place V she added carelessly. "You 
 were going to tell me all about it the other even- 
 ing and something interrupted." 
 
 She moved the lamp to one side and seemed 
 to have trouble with the wick. Meanwhile, 
 womanlike, she managed a complete appraisal 
 of his appearance. She found him cleanly 
 shaven as always, simply dressed, well poised, 
 and with a steady, friendly light in his lumi- 
 nous eyes. A recollection of the woman at the 
 kitchen doorway came into her mind, but was 
 as quickly put away. 
 
 "He finds a ledge — and locates it," he an- 
 swered. "That means building a discovery 
 monument on the outcrop and putting other 
 monuments at the corners of the claim. His 
 development work must be done inside of three 
 months from that date. Then the ground is 
 his for a year from the following January. 
 After that he has to do regular assessment 
 work each year in order to keep his title." 
 
 "It seems very simple," Alva remarked. 
 "Why IS it that they so often have trouble?" 
 
 "Sometimes men think that others have com- 
 mitted illegal acts in locating," was the re- 
 
68 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 sponse. ''Location depends on a man's word. 
 Generally it's respected. But there are some 
 who take advantage of that fact. Nearly al- 
 ways they get caught. I have met one or two 
 like that." 
 
 ''Did you have trouble?" 
 
 "It could be called that," he admitted eva- 
 sively. "But trouble always depends on the 
 men/' His eyes strayed away. He seemed 
 about to speak of something else. 
 
 But there was something yet for Alva to 
 know. She turned again to her friend, the 
 lampwick, and moved it up and down. Mean- 
 while, she asked her question : 
 
 "What happens to a man's claim if he — if he 
 goes away — and doesn't come back — that is, 
 in time to do his location work?" 
 
 The hand on the table before her beat a faint 
 tattoo before the answer came. 
 
 "In that case it reverts to the government 
 and can be relocated." 
 
 ''When?" asked Alva sharply. 
 
 "At the end of the ninety days," he 
 smiled. 
 
 "But might not others relocate it before then 
 — if they were very anxious for it and knew 
 that the man might never come back ?" 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 6g 
 
 *Tt would be wrong," he said evenly. ''No 
 one would uphold them in it/' 
 
 Alva was puzzled. Could it be that Donald 
 had not done even the first simple work neces- 
 sary to holding a claim? Yet how could the 
 man across the table have secured it in any 
 other way? 
 
 "Generally a man does his location work as 
 soon as he finds his ledge, but, of course, there 
 are exceptions to all rules," he said, in a curi- 
 ously level voice. Then he raised fiis eyes to 
 hers with an amused smile. *Why not locate 
 a claim for yourself and see how it's done? 
 There's some good ground not yet taken up 
 along the cliflf that looks down into the valley. 
 I've been thinking" — and his strong, quiet eyes 
 looked hopefully into hers — ''that perhaps we 
 might walk out that way to-morrow afternoon. 
 You'll not find many things like the Valley back 
 East. It's only a mile from here. Is that too 
 far?" he asked, with some concern. 
 
 "Too far?" cried Alva, laughing at the ridic- 
 ulous challenge. "Do you think, sir, I must 
 always have your horse to ride?" 
 
 With this answer he apparently considered 
 the object of his visit accomplished, for he rose 
 and held out his hand. 
 
70 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ''You could have him/' he said, with a curi- 
 ous Httle nod. ''He hasn't seemed quite the 
 same ever since that first night. I declare, I 
 just don't know what's got into him lately. It 
 must be loco weed. He won't have anything 
 to do with the other horses in the corral nowa- 
 days. He seems all stuck up !" 
 
 "And so you want to give him away — ^to 
 mer 
 
 "If you like his gait. You must look him 
 over first. But I'll be here to-morrow when I 
 come off shift." He lifted his hat and was out 
 of sight almost at once in the darkness. 
 
 "What a silly thing to say about a horse!" 
 Alva murmured. And then, as she stood in 
 her doorway trying to recognize a disappearing 
 figure as his, she felt the blood steal warmly 
 into her cheek. He had not been speaking of 
 his horse. 
 
 Her hand brushed against the packet of let- 
 ters in her skirt and she clutched them with all 
 her strength. There must be nothing of that 
 kind — unless — unless it were she who brought 
 it about for her own purposes. Her brow 
 darkened. By what curious process had this 
 man obtained title to Donald's claim? By 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 71 
 
 what right, legal or moral, had he assumed 
 possession of this precious property that was 
 still lawfully Donald's — aye — and hers, too. 
 
 ''Good evening, Miss Leigh," said a voice be- 
 side her. Duncan, the young miner from the 
 Cactus shaft, stepped into the beam of light 
 and bowed in his rather pleasant way. ''See- 
 ing you were having callers, I figured Fd step 
 over.'' 
 
 Once more Alva saw the look in the young 
 man's eyes that seemed to show an insight into 
 her affairs. At other times this had been dis- 
 turbing, but to-night she decided to make use 
 of his knowledge. Yet she did not ask him in, 
 but showed him, instead, a seat beside her on 
 the doorstep, where the light shining from be- 
 hind kept her face in the shadow. 
 
 ''Everyone here seems to be making money 
 nowadays," she said. "Are you selling claims, 
 too?" 
 
 "I only wish I was," came the immediate an- 
 swer and an equally quick look that was not 
 hard for her to interpret. "There are reasons 
 why I'd like to get my hooks on a few thou- 
 sands right now. But I've got no claims. 
 Got done out of 'em," he added bitterly. 
 
y2 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "There was a lot of midnight locating done 
 here a while back, as you may know. But TU 
 get square, some day/' 
 
 ''You know who did it, of course," said 
 Alva. "If you were in the right, why couldn't 
 you make them give it up ?'' 
 
 "I guess you don't rightly understand, Miss 
 Leigh," Duncan answered sourly. "In all 
 these places there's rings. If a poor man 
 doesn't get into the ring at the start, he stands 
 no show. When there's two or three big men 
 and mebbe some guns to back up a jumper 
 when he knocks over your monument, what 
 are you going to do? Suppose, now, that I 
 come into this yere camp when it's only a pup, 
 and I see a likely-looking fraction stuck away 
 somewhere in a good group. Suppose their 
 owners are the men that run the camp — not 
 mine operators, you understand, but miners, 
 these yere presidents and secretaries and of- 
 ficers of the Federation. What chance have I 
 got against ihem? Do you reckon I kin hold 
 that ground if it isn't recorded and surveyed? 
 No, ma'am ! Not in a thousand years ! They 
 ain't yere for their health, you bet! A little 
 bit of a mistake in a date or a description is 
 good enough for them. Over she goes ! 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 73 
 
 Kick down the monument! Tear up the no- 
 tice! Pull out the guns! Then where are 
 you?" 
 
 Alva sat still, listening intently to every 
 word. If she had not been so completely ab- 
 sorbed in fitting the puzzle together with the 
 aid of this new evidence, she might have felt 
 the man's mind working on hers with almost 
 uncanny perceptiveness. 
 
 'T'll show you what I mean," he said, with a 
 ring of sincerity in his voice. ''Then you'll 
 know more about some of these fellows. 'Way 
 last fall, a man comes into this yere camp. I 
 ain't saying how old he was, or his name. I 
 ain't the kind that looks for trouble. But, 
 anyway, he was in the first rush, and he took 
 up a lot of claims. Some were here and some 
 were there, and one was a fraction on the best 
 piece of outcrop in camp. Now, if all those 
 claims had been in the same group, he could 
 have done enough work on one of them to hold 
 the whole lot. But they were scattered. He 
 had to pick away, first on one and then on an- 
 other. 
 
 ''Now, while he was doing his holding work 
 one week on a 'way-oflf claim, a man who owned 
 all around this fraction looked over the young 
 
74 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 fellow's paper and saw that the young fellow 
 had located the same day he did. So what 
 does this man do? He changes his own date 
 to one day earlier, and then he pivots his claims 
 on his discovery monuments so as to cover up 
 the fraction. And he puts up his permanent 
 corners and side-centers, and gets it surveyed 
 and recorded. And he crowds that young fel- 
 low out and says there ain't any fraction, and 
 never was. 
 
 "Now, what can the boy do ? There's a Lo- 
 cal to appeal to — yes — ^but the other man's 
 high up in it. In fact, he's about, at the top. 
 Mebbe you'd call him at the top. Yes. 
 Let it go that way. And so the boy gets 
 laughed at and he feels mean. But he 
 has good stuff in him. He's a fighter. He 
 won't let anyone beat him on a little techni- 
 cality, and he won't quit. Only, he makes 
 one mistake." 
 
 "What was that?" asked Alva sharply. 
 
 "Why — er — he goes to packing a gun. 
 Now, that's foolish. I carry one myself, 
 sometimes — ^but I don't make threats. So 
 they know he's got the gun, and that he's pick- 
 ing up evidence against them. Things begin 
 to look bad. They have to make a move. So 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 75 
 
 this is what they do: They send a man out 
 after that young fellow, and they get him to 
 drinking, and they put knock-out drops in his 
 glass. And then another Mr. Friend, who's 
 all ready near by, gets him out into the brush 
 — 'to get over it' — and leaves him there. In 
 the morning, what do they find? They find 
 that poor, innocent, hard-working, nice young 
 fellow, that never hurt anybody or anything, 
 lying there with no money in his pockets — 
 shot with his own gunT 
 
 Duncan halted abruptly, almost dramatic- 
 ally. Then he laughed. "But that's the way 
 it goes. Simple, ain't it?" 
 
 ''Very simple," Alva answered dully. 
 "What did they do about it?" 
 
 ''Do! With Mr. Date Changer sitting in 
 the Local office all night long with his pals so 
 as to furnish an alibi? What could they do? 
 They buried the poor, innocent young fellow — 
 that's all. I — er — I helped 'em do it. 
 
 "I tell you what. Miss Leigh," the man con- 
 tinued venomously. "You don't know — you 
 never could know — the kinds of men there is 
 in this camp. Goody-goody-looking men that 
 are so crooked they couldn't sleep in a round- 
 house. Men that look you straight between 
 
76 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 the eyes and make you think they're sending 
 money home to their mothers, when all the 
 time they're figuring out some way to do you 
 up and make it look as if — as if the desert 
 beat you !" 
 
 As if the desert had beaten him! A month 
 ago the phrase would have been meaningless, 
 but to-night she knew to the uttermost what 
 it meant. Alva had felt for some time that 
 the very lack of a clew pointed to brains in the 
 crime's engineering. Now the light was be- 
 ginning to break. 
 
 ''But I don't like to talk," the man continued 
 shrewdly. "I don't ever say much. I might 
 get misunderstood. Danny the Bum, he 
 knows. He's up all night, knocking round. 
 As for me — I've got to sleep, so's I kin make 
 my wages. And I've got a good stake saved 
 up, too. It won't be long now before I pull 
 out for Idyho. That's the country you ought 
 to see. Miss Leigh. All hills and woods and 
 green valleys high up with grass and streams 
 a-running everywhere. That's the place fer 
 a young couple like you and me to live. 
 Mebbe you'd like to — " 
 
 'I'm very tired to-night, Mr. Duncan," 
 Alva interrupted. "If you don't mind, I'll say 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST ^^ 
 
 good night. Perhaps — if you happen to see 
 Danny to-morrow — you might tell him that 
 Tve some work he can do/' 
 
 Chagrined by his abrupt dismissal, the man 
 stood by in silence while she passed in and 
 closed the door. He was a hard bitten, 
 shrewd young man for all his mask of sin- 
 cerity and he had laid some ingenious plans 
 as to the future of Alva Leigh. He had not 
 meant to speak to-night but something in her 
 despondency had lured him on and now all his 
 careful schemes had fallen to pieces. He had 
 made his ''play'' and lost. 
 
 For a time he stood there in the darkness, 
 meditating, and then moved away, passing si- 
 lently between the tents to the virginal grease- 
 wood behind them, where a path led him to an 
 isolated tent-house near the vague bulk of the 
 lumber yard. 
 
 There was a light in the house, shining out 
 of the open door, and on the doorstep sat a 
 woman with red hair and a white dress. As the 
 man came into the light, she recognized him 
 and spoke; whereupon he stepped out of the 
 light again and seated himself near by. 
 . "Fve just come from there, Lil," he said, 
 as if he knew why she was sitting there alone, 
 
78 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 thinking. "And you can bet on it — you've 
 got no show/' 
 
 An angry exclamation leaped to the wom- 
 an's lips at the brutality, but she choked it oflf 
 and laughed. 
 
 "Neither have you," she retorted. "We're 
 two of a kind, you and I, and we're certainly 
 beauts." 
 
 "I can't see it," he objected. "I'd be all 
 right for her, I reckon, if I had a stake. You 
 can marry any woman if you have enough 
 money, and you don't need much to start with 
 if you're a good liar. How about a couple of 
 ten-spots, Lillian? Can you spare it? I'm 
 cut right off at the pockets to-night — ^just 
 when I've spotted a brace of Easterners that 
 I could work into a little game of stud. Come 
 through, and help a fellow out." 
 
 The woman narrowed her eyes. "What do 
 you know?" she asked, as if she would bargain 
 a while. 
 
 "I know this much," he answered: "Either 
 she thinks Randall shot young Jaffray for his 
 claim, or else I'm the worst-fooled man in ten 
 counties. And you can bet I piled it in." 
 
 "You did?" the woman murmured thought- 
 fully. "Did you mention names?" 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 79 
 
 ''Not me. It's better not. But it hit her 
 hard — and stuck. I saw through her Httle 
 game a month or more ago. I wonder what 
 she thinks she can do." 
 
 "Sometimes those women can do a good 
 deal/' was the sober answer. ''Even when 
 there's very Httle evidence. People believe 
 them, you see." 
 
 He looked at her sideways for a moment, 
 meditating some new viciousness. 
 
 "Would you have him just the same if 
 it was true?" he asked. 
 
 The red-haired woman made a disgusted 
 movement that showed her fiery temper. She 
 had to grip her hands together to keep from 
 striking him. Her throat filled up and choked 
 her utterance. 
 
 "I'd take Dick Randall quick as a wink if 
 he'd shot the whole lot of you for your claims," 
 she said thickly. "He's more than you'll ever 
 be. He's a man!'' 
 
 "Then you'll have your chance," was the 
 acid reply. "He did it — and there isn't a 
 man in camp that knows it but me. I've got 
 him any time I want him." 
 
 For a moment the woman said nothing, but 
 only stared into the darkness, where she had 
 
8o HEARTS STE;ADFAST 
 
 heard footsteps. Then, as she felt him dan- 
 gerously near her, she sprang to her feet. 
 
 ''None of thatr she cried, as she tried to 
 reach the house. ''Don't think you can hold 
 me up ! Oh, I guess I know who's doing the 
 strong-arm work around here now, and I 
 guess I know who shot Don Jaffray, too. 
 There'll be more that know it by to-morrow. 
 And don't you try to tell me anything about 
 Dick Randall. If you had anything on him, 
 you'd have bled him to death months ago, or 
 you'd be dead. Let me in that doorT 
 
 For answer, the man only advanced on her 
 silently, driving her ahead of him into the 
 greasewood and away from the house. In his 
 hand he held a glittering object gripped like 
 a club. 
 
 ''Give me that money," he said, in a low 
 voice, and glanced over his shoulder at an in- 
 distinct figure that seemed to be approaching. 
 "Tell them, if you want — and spoil your own 
 game. I didn't think you were such a fool." 
 
 The red-haired woman stood still for a mo- 
 ment as if she saw the truth of his remark, and 
 then suddenly laughed in his face. 
 
 "Why, hello, Dick!" she cried, in a strident 
 voice that rang out across the open spaces to 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 8i 
 
 at least one of the tents on Main Street. 
 *'Here he is behind you, right now/' 
 
 With an oath, Duncan whirled about and 
 saw — Danny the Bum. The woman laughed 
 mockingly and slipped by into the house. 
 
 Snarling with rage, Duncan drew back his 
 fist and planted it squarely in the gray-bearded, 
 vacuous face. 
 
 A few yards away and the miner turned, as 
 if struck by a sudden thought, and looked back. 
 The woman had left the protecting doorway, 
 and was helping a staggering form into the 
 house. 
 
 *That was a fool trick," Duncan muttered. 
 'That old dope can make a lot of trouble for 
 me. Well — I guess I'll play the game 
 through to-night — then quit. My luck's 
 played out." 
 
 Halfway up the main street, where a cross- 
 road came in from the Magnet Consolidated's 
 shaft a mile away, two large acetylene lights 
 emblazoned the dubious name "Red Onion" on 
 a high-fronted, frame saloon. Here Duncan 
 circulated slowly through the pay-night 
 crowds, and carefully spoke to all the men he 
 knew. One or two offered him drinks, but 
 he shook his head. He wasn't feeling just 
 
82 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 right, he said, to all those who could hear him, 
 and was going home to bed. Another circuitous 
 voyage through the smoke-hazed bedlam, and 
 he noticed with satisfaction that comparatively 
 few of the Consolidated's men had come over 
 the dark trail from their isolated workings. 
 Behind the bar a nickeled clock told him that 
 it was only eight-thirty. His thin lips came 
 together in a line as he made his grim calcula- 
 tions. If he hurried a little, he could get to 
 the point of rocks on the Consolidated's trail 
 at just about the right time. 
 
 With a cautious glance around to see if he 
 were noticed, he stepped quickly out of the 
 back door of the saloon, and struck out through 
 the brush at a rapid walk. But as he went, a 
 shambling figure, which had been wandering 
 around in the darkness outside the saloon, rec- 
 ognized him, and saw where he was going. 
 Presently, after some obvious skull gropings, 
 it decided to follow. 
 
 It was about this same time of the evening 
 that a boy came and stood on a chair in the 
 Miners' Hall across from the Red Onion, and 
 lighted a flaring kerosene lamp which dangled 
 from a cross beam. This done, he lingered 
 on the steps until a dozen grave-faced men ar- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 83 
 
 rived and shut the door on their deliberations, 
 which were on certain hold-ups that were be- 
 ing committed almost nightly in the camp and 
 the line of action which should be taken. 
 
 And it was about this same time, also, that 
 a woman took a pen and laboriously printed a 
 few lines on a sheet of pink note paper, whose 
 envelope she took pains to address in the same 
 cautious way. 
 
 And yet another woman, alone in her tent, 
 sat among a handful of letters strewn across 
 her bed, alternately puzzling over a man's 
 name which had rung out just now on the 
 clear night air, and repeating certain phrases 
 over and over again under her breath: 
 
 "Found shot." "With his own gun." 
 "As if the desert had beaten him." 
 
 Only an able man would have thought of 
 that. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHEN old Sarah called to her a little 
 after four the next afternoon, Alva 
 turned away from the tiny mirror swaying 
 against the frame of her tent, with a greater 
 certainty of herself and what she purposed to 
 do than had been hers at any time since she 
 had come to Magnet. She knew perfectly 
 well that she could never hope to trap a man 
 like Richard Randall into damaging confes- 
 sions, but her instinct told her that to-day he 
 was ready to be led into a disclosure of his true 
 character, whatever that might prove to be. 
 
 And so it was a bright-faced, apparently in- 
 terested woman who strode untiringly with 
 him up the sage-sweet slopes behind the town, 
 and entered into his mood with a careful sym- 
 pathy that started a warm flow of words. 
 
 "I've wanted you to see the Valley many a 
 
 time since you came,'' he said, and immediately 
 
 the strong appeal of his tones was upon her, 
 
 in spite of her determination not to feel it. 
 
 'To me, this is the solemnest place in all the 
 
 84 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST . 85 
 
 world — because it's so silent." They had 
 nearly reached the summit of the Funerals, and 
 already a ribbony line of snow, miles away 
 through the thin air, had come into view on 
 the other side of a great gap that was yet un- 
 seen. "Even if a fellow could concentrate si- 
 lences the same as you concentrate sulphides 
 on a Wilfley table, I reckon these Death Valley 
 silences would still outrun your product about 
 a thousand ounces to the ton." 
 
 Then they gained the summit of the range, 
 and Alva put out her hand to stay his words. 
 She saw now why he had called it "solemn," 
 and she saw the reason for its name, for the 
 presage of death lay in every stark detail. 
 
 Beneath their feet a great cliff of burnt 
 sienna fell, sheer, a thousand feet. Below 
 this, bright terraces of hillocks tumbled down 
 two thousand more into rocky gorges, and 
 gray beds of sand, which wound, snakelike, be- 
 tween hills, snow-white and orange and blood- 
 red, down to a yellow, heat-hazed plain. 
 Scorified like the crimson hulk of a dead 
 crater, the ghastly gorges and hummocks cut 
 and rolled their way north and south until they 
 faded into vague blurs of color in the smoky 
 distance. Directly across the great gap, the 
 
86 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 bleak front of the Panamints, capped with 
 snow, rose like a sinister prison wall. And 
 always between them lay that glittering, twink- 
 ling, white-powdered, yellow plain — lifeless, 
 hot, and still — attracting with the fascination 
 of unfathomed peril, and yet as repelling as a 
 skull grinning through a shroud. 
 
 The woman groped behind her and sank 
 down on a jutting table of rock. It all seemed 
 a perfectly fitting climax to the premonitory 
 wastes behind them. Just as there are parts 
 of this earth that promise life and happiness 
 at first sight, so this place, too, had its declara- 
 tion, but the silent warning that came up to 
 her from the great sink below was that of 
 death and despair. Nothing could palliate its 
 sterility — nothing in all that riot of color north 
 and south or in the bleak, stony west held out 
 the faintest hope of a habitable region beyond. 
 Hemmed in by the two great mountain chains, 
 the hideous basin, with its gleaming floor, 
 seemed like a great smelting pot beneath whose 
 treacherous golden dross a hell of molten metal 
 bubbled, yet seemed still. 
 
 And over it all was the constant sense 
 of heat — overpowering and unescapable — re- 
 fracting upon her from every angle of the hot 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 87 
 
 rocks, shooting up from the still hotter gorges 
 and burnt hillocks, reflecting from the gilt- 
 tering miles of salt and borax spread out il- 
 limitably below. Even on the high edge of the 
 cliff, the air felt dry and lifeless. What must 
 it be down there where the yellow surface 
 rocked with gentle undulations as the bluish 
 gauze of the heat waves swam up and down? 
 
 Alva turned a strained look on the man be- 
 side her. She felt frightened. 
 
 He smiled understandingly, and nodded. 
 
 "It's pretty bad," he said. "Next month it 
 will be the worst of all. Even now it would 
 be hard work to stay alive down there very 
 long — where even flies can't live. But men 
 have had to do it. Some Mormons tried it a 
 good many years ago, and they had a hard 
 time. They'd sold out their Utah ranches and 
 were traveling west over the old California 
 trail, and the party split here in the Funerals 
 through a disagreement over an Indian guide 
 who knew about the valley, and wouldn't tackle 
 it. 
 
 "So half of them went down the Amargosa 
 Valley, and on through the Soda Lake Sink 
 country, which is nearly as bad, and so on 
 through to what is now Los Angeles. 
 
88 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "The other half of the party cut across the 
 desert behind us to this place, crossing a few 
 miles up there to the north. When they 
 reached the other side, they found they 
 couldn't get up through the Panamints, and 
 they had to stop." 
 
 He pointed across the sink, with its winding 
 rivers of salt mush and borax, to where a 
 small clump of willows and mesquite dotted a 
 fanlike arroyo bed at the foot of the western 
 wall. "Do you see that tiny green spot? 
 That's a spring they opened up, just by luck. 
 Nowadays men call it 'Bennett's Wells.' It 
 was the only thing that saved them. 
 
 "There they rested for a while, and counted 
 noses. Some had dropped behind — for keeps. 
 Then they tried to get out, going north — all 
 along that western side — hunting for a gulch 
 where they could get their wagons up. But 
 they didn't find it. And always some fellow 
 got enough of it after a while, and dropped 
 where he stood. Because, you see — it isn't 
 lack of water in the canteen that makes 
 the trouble so much as it is the lack of 
 water in the air. Up here, there's forty 
 or fifty per cent., we'll say — down there. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 89 
 
 there's only ten, or maybe fii^e. It isn't thirst 
 that kills in Death Valley. It's letting your 
 head get too hot. 
 
 *'Well — then — they came back — ^back to 
 Bennett's Wells, and after they'd rested, they 
 began to figure on the south. They were an 
 uncomplaining lot, those old Mormons, and 
 pretty grim. Down south they did better, but 
 their animals were getting weak, and it 
 wouldn't do for them to pull a pound more than 
 was absolutely necessary. So they figured 
 that they'd better leave all their money be- 
 hind — buried somewhere — two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars in gold. And three picked men 
 went out and buried it over there on the slope 
 south of the Wells. Then they went on. 
 There had been about forty of them at first. 
 Now there were a lot less. 
 
 "But it was hard work to get along, and 
 when, just by luck, they stumbled on a spring, 
 they were pretty thirsty. Now this spring 
 had poisoned water — they called it 'Bitter 
 Spring.' All of that party — all of those men 
 who had left the original outfit here in the 
 Funerals curled up and died alongside of that 
 spring, including the men that had buried the 
 
90 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 treasure. Just three out of the lot escaped, 
 and they left in a hurry — on foot, because all 
 the animals were dead, too. 
 
 "Now, here is the point of the story. While 
 those three men were climbing up the Pana- 
 mints, trying to get out, they came across an 
 outcrop of silver ore — native silver — with the 
 values sticking out in wires and knobs. In 
 fact, it was so easy to knock the silver out of 
 the rock that they pounded some out and made 
 new sights for their rifles. And they called 
 it the 'Gun Sight Mine,' and went on. A long 
 time afterward they turned up at the old Nfew- 
 hall Ranch over there in the San Fernando 
 Valley, and were saved. When they told 
 their story, they started a search for the Gun 
 Sight Mine that's been going on for more than 
 fifty years!" 
 
 "And it has never been found?" 
 "Not yet," he smiled. "It's probably cov- 
 ered up with 'wash' from the rains. But we 
 have hopes because the rains will uncover it 
 some day. I have a man over there right 
 now, looking around. Perhaps he'll find it 
 and send me word — perhaps he won't. But 
 if he did send me word — " He paused and 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 91 
 
 Alva saw the pleasant lips tighten ever so lit- 
 tle and the fine eyes contract. 
 
 *'You would go across — even now?'' she 
 ventured, with a swift look at the yellow sink 
 below. 
 
 ''Even now," he answered. "It can be done. 
 And it would have to be done,'' he added, a 
 trifle grimly. "News of the finding of the 
 Gun Sight would bring a hundred men there 
 overnight. I would go by the causeway over 
 the borax marsh at Furnace Creek up there to 
 the north — then south by Bennett's Wells." 
 
 "But the water J" she cried, almost frantic- 
 ally. "Where would you get it?" 
 
 "I could make the Wells on two canteens," 
 was his reply. 
 
 He stretched himself at her feet, his back 
 against the ledge of rock, his felt hat in his 
 lap, and his eyes, thoughtful and steady, fixed 
 on the darkening mountain chain from among 
 whose snow-tipped peaks some day might come 
 a message. There was no denying the cer- 
 tainty with which he estimated his ability, but 
 the sense was equally strong that he was 
 right — that he could reach the Wells on two 
 canteens. 
 
92 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 Alva shifted her position so as to study his 
 face. Whatever grim means he might use to 
 accompHsh his purposes the man's general 
 aims in life were unquestionably sane. For 
 the first time since she had known him, she 
 began to understand his ambitions, even 
 though it was quite possible that they had for- 
 ever ended her own. She saw, for one thing, 
 just why he was satisfied to stay in Magnet 
 and work as a laborer. Back in the East, men 
 in like pursuits stayed in the rut because timid- 
 ity or misfortune closed their eyes to their 
 chances, but here was a man who, while he 
 worked, was in constant activity, keeping 
 prospectors in the field, sending his earnings 
 to recently discovered camps, continually test- 
 ing, digging, exploring, unceasingly yet si- 
 lently pursuing the end that he knew he would, 
 in time, accomplish. 
 
 And so, in spite of the gall-like bitterness of 
 her suspicions, her honesty compelled her to 
 acknowledge his grip on the possibilities con- 
 tained in himself and in this wide Western 
 world in which he lived. He had begun to 
 typify that larger life that she was coming to 
 know. And this life, which had seemed at first 
 an existence devoted merely to taking reckless 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 93 
 
 chances was, in reality, she was beginning to 
 see, a logical and never-ceasing search for the 
 success that could be found somewhere in these 
 hot hills because, of a certainty, it lay there 
 waiting to be found. 
 
 Little by little Alva's mind wandered away 
 from her main purpose. He had begun to 
 talk, quietly and very simply and, as far as 
 she could detect, without a trace of anything 
 but sober honesty in his tones. Alva's in- 
 tended study changed into silent absorption. 
 
 'Tt's always there — if you'll only look far 
 enough and long enough," he said, uncon- 
 sciously following her thoughts. 'That's the 
 thing that has kept me going. The way to 
 find a mine is to look for it — and the way to 
 keep it good after you've found it is to keep 
 on looking. And I shall be always looking. 
 
 ''But I have been at it quite a while," he 
 added thoughtfully, and smiled up at her as 
 if still on good terms with chance. "I started 
 mining when I was twelve years old, nipping 
 tools over in Grass Valley, and I've been pros- 
 pecting and mining ever since. Naturally, I 
 haven't been able to bother a college much 
 during that time. Would that spoil a man for 
 you?" 
 
94 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "No," said Alva understandingly. 
 
 He nodded. "I've met some who would 
 figure on it a whole lot, but not you, I reckon. 
 As a matter of fact, I have been to a good 
 many schools and colleges in my life, but they 
 were not like those you'd know about. 
 TheyVe been in Nevada and in California, 
 and, for a while, one was in Arizona. You 
 see — I had to start out young. I'm only thirty 
 or so now, but I've had to do everything on a 
 ranch that there was to do in order to keep 
 going, and nearly everything around a mine. 
 My father and my brother had a quick ending 
 down in Arizona, and I was left with some 
 debts to pay." 
 
 "You mean — they died in an accident?" 
 
 "Well — hardly that, ma'am. It was Mexi- 
 cans that did it. You see — we were always 
 what might be called a mining family. If 
 there was a rush anywhere near by, one of us 
 would always go. And so, little by little, my 
 brother got down into Arizona and found a 
 ledge and sent for my father. 
 
 "But this ledge was near the 'line,' and the 
 fellows over the border were pretty 'bravo.' 
 When they heard we had a good claim, they 
 came over, and tried to take it away from my 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 95 
 
 father and my brother. It was then that they 
 were killed. I had not yet come down from 
 California. But when I heard about it, I lost 
 no time. There were seven Mexicans that 
 did it. I was just turned eighteen when — 
 when the matter was finally settled.'' 
 
 Alva's lips parted suddenly, but she finally 
 let her question go unasked. One boy with a 
 rifle against seven! And the seven had '^set- 
 tled"! 
 
 "After that I knocked around a good deal — 
 punching and mining and milling — ^back and 
 forth and crosswise. But, somehow, I was 
 always trying to pick up something as I went 
 along, because I knew that if I made a big 
 stake, rd want an education mighty bad. 
 And so I studied books when I could, and I 
 listened to people who knew, and now I have 
 got so that Fm not afraid to talk with most 
 men. That is to say — I have sometimes got a 
 little information on something that they don't 
 know about — when they happen to get around 
 to it." 
 
 He paused and looked up at her with an 
 amused smile. "Do you see, now, how the 
 desert makes a fellow want to talk? A 
 woman to tell your story to out here is bet- 
 
96 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ter than a dish of vanilla ice cream down there 
 at the Wells on a hot day." 
 
 ''Where did you go from Arizona?'' Alva 
 asked. 
 
 ''Utah, for a while — hunting for copper up 
 along the rim of the basin/' he answered, drop- 
 ping his eyes again to the shimmering valley, 
 whose western slopes were beginning to pur- 
 ple. "Then back on the Mother Lode, blanket- 
 sluicing tailings that a fellow with a stamp 
 mill didn't know how to save. That gave me 
 a good stake for Thunder Mountain — and 
 British Columbia — and Nome. Sometimes I 
 made a strike and sometimes I lost it. I'd 
 work until I had something saved up, and then 
 it would go into a hole. Generally it stayed 
 there. A few times, perhaps, I could have 
 bought a ranch, but, you see, I was always try- 
 ing to find something big. I can always earn 
 a hundred and fifty dollars a month running 
 hoist, and sometimes two or three times that 
 amount on shaft and tunnel contracts, but I 
 want more than that — not because I want the 
 money so much as because I — Well — prob- 
 ably you wouldn't catch my point of view. It 
 would seem too braggish." 
 
 His eyelids rose and fell over a quick glance 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 97 
 
 to see if she would accept his modestly stated 
 hope. 'TVe been feeling that perhaps I had 
 more in me than just that little bit." 
 
 The conviction had come to Alva some time 
 since that he had more in him than even he 
 himself knew, but she said nothing in reply. 
 Restraint still tied her tongue. 
 
 ''And I have come to the point," he said, 
 and she felt his eyes warm on hers, ''where I 
 can see the difference in people — I mean, the 
 way you see it. When I was a boy, people 
 were pretty much all alike, only some were 
 good and some were downright bad. Women 
 were different. They were all good — and it 
 took quite a while to show me that perhaps I 
 had made a little mistake there. And then, 
 too, I couldn't notice anything about Eastern 
 folks — except the funny way they talked and 
 their clothes, and that took quite a while. 
 
 "But I'm getting to know where I stand, 
 now. And Fm feeling better because I can 
 find the pay streak in people even when it's 
 covered up pretty deep with wash." He 
 opened out his hand in the familiar gesture. 
 "You see — ^^Fm glad of all that, because some 
 day Fll use it where it ought to be used. It 
 won't be long now before I make a strike. I'm 
 
98 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 getting good reports 'most every week. Then, 
 perhaps, I'll be a little more than I am to-day." 
 
 "And then?'' asked Alva, because she could 
 not help herself. 
 
 *'And then I shall ask a certain woman if 
 she will marry me," he answered gravely. 
 'Terhaps even before then — if she under- 
 stands that I mean always to do right, and will 
 not make her suffer through whisky. But she 
 need not worry. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of a man falling in love 
 with a picture?'' he asked abruptly, with a 
 boldness that might have been used to cover 
 trepidation. "Would that seem like a boy's 
 trick to you? I know of a man who did that 
 once — a man a good deal like myself. You 
 see — it happened this way: Wherever this 
 fellow went around through the country, he 
 would always look around him at the women 
 in the cities or towns where he worked. And 
 the longer he looked, the more he thought that 
 a good many of them didn't seem to be acting 
 quite right about things. He didn't know just 
 what was wrong — whether it was the way they 
 regarded their homes or their husbands or 
 the terrible baby difficulty, only it seemed as 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 99 
 
 if they weren't quite holding up their end of 
 the game. 
 
 "Now, a man has got to have standards or 
 he doesn't amount to much. If he hasn't got 
 a good old mother or father to give him a little 
 family pride to come and go on, he has to man- 
 ufacture something to take its place. So gen- 
 erally he makes up a code of some kind, even 
 if it's only 'no drinks before breakfast,' and 
 he sticks to that. But the women that this 
 fellow met didn't seem to have any codes or 
 standards or any foolish things like that. 
 They were like a lot of pretty, sassy kids whose 
 husbands were only made to walk on. It was 
 just whatever they could get away with that 
 they did. 
 
 *'And so this fellow got pretty disgusted. 
 He said, 'I have got my ideas about this thing, 
 and if there isn't any woman around that's a 
 great deal better than / am, I'll go to work 
 and manufacture a woman in my mind that 
 will do for me until I find one.' And so he 
 fixed one up from a picture he once saw, with 
 dark eyes — like yours, I reckon — and dark 
 hair, too. And he gave her a fine, strong 
 body and a mind without any — er — crooked 
 
lOO HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 streaks in it. And he made her loyal and 
 brave — *' 
 
 Alva smiled. Honesty was making the old, 
 old dream both fresh and poignant. 
 
 ''Doesn't nearly every man do just that? 
 Isn't she what you call your 'ideal woman'?" 
 
 "Perhaps," he conceded, so thoughtfully 
 that she saw he had never been conscious of it 
 before. "But this fellow went a little far- 
 ther than that. He made her better than 
 himself. He made her think big, noble 
 things. He didn't want her sticking around 
 down where he was. He wanted her always 
 just a little ahead of him, so that he could 
 keep on working. Would you have any other 
 kind?" 
 
 "N-no," said Alva, startled. "But he was 
 a very unusual sort of man to want her to be 
 better than himself." She wondered if he 
 thought he was deceiving her. "Most men 
 want merely a partner." 
 
 In spite of all she could do, a curious ques- 
 tion flashed through her mind: What had 
 Donald wanted her to be? Her thoughts 
 raced back over the years in an attempt to 
 recollect some hunger for inspiration that 
 would match this one found to-day. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST, loi 
 
 ''It seems to me/' she said thoughtfully, 
 ''that it would be very hard to find a woman 
 for a man who wanted to be inspired." 
 
 ''But this man found her," he objected 
 gently ; whereat his theory seemed less whimsi- 
 cal. "And she was all the things he had 
 figured on. Only — after he'd found her, he 
 became afraid that he wasn't good enough 
 for her, and that made him feel pretty bad. 
 In fact, he used to talk to me about that side 
 of it." 
 
 Alva shot a quick glance at him. Was he 
 talking about some other man, after all? 
 Forthwith, she began to formulate traps for 
 him, but gave it up after a few futile attempts. 
 His easy flow of ideas confused her, and made 
 her own mental processes seem slow and 
 stupid. For some curious reason, which ought 
 to have been irritating, she could not grasp 
 the trend of his thoughts, and so was forced 
 to follow obediently wherever he led, losing 
 more of her independence with every word. 
 And in this strange condition of mind, which 
 was more pleasant than she would ever have 
 suspected, she unknowingly took another step. 
 
 He was lying back against the rock on which 
 she sat, his eyes sometimes on hers, but more 
 
I02 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 often lazily surveying the valley through half- 
 closed lids. While his eyes were cast down, 
 her own inventoried him. Again her rest- 
 less imagination made him a type, but this time 
 it was with a more generous award of keen- 
 ness and breadth of vision than before. As 
 she followed the simply told stories of his 
 young manhood as they came uncynically, but 
 with accurate weighing, from his lips, she 
 found other stories infinitely more interesting 
 in the sensitive, aquiline nose and cleft chin. 
 He spoke of many rough affairs in which he 
 had been involved, but he did not boast of the 
 clean living that she saw in the clear eyes and 
 skin. Neither did he say he was self-respect- 
 ing, although she read it as well in his well- 
 kept mustache as in his manner of thought. 
 
 So close was she to him there in the solitude, 
 where not even the hum of a fly broke the si- 
 lence, that a new thrall laid hold of her, and 
 this time it was the sense of his physical at- 
 tractiveness. Without being conscious of it, 
 what little of masculinity she had built up in 
 herself during the past months faded quickly 
 away before the complete virility that lay at 
 ease an arm's length away. For the first time 
 in years, Alva Leigh became gladly feminine 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 103 
 
 again, secretly admiring his length and 
 straightness of Hmb — speculating idly on the 
 strength that must lie in those big brown 
 hands — wondering why he parted his hair on 
 the side where it was thinnest — eagerly wait- 
 ing for his lips to part so that she might see 
 his white, even teeth — and, most inexplicable 
 of all, smiling, unconsciously, when he smiled. 
 But it was only a moment before, horrified, 
 she realized what had happened and angrily 
 broke off the insidious train of thought. A 
 fierce pang shot through her when she saw 
 how little she had accomplished. And yet, as 
 she dared another look and let the honesty of 
 his words obtain its due, the conviction, warm 
 and fragrant, stole into her welcoming heart 
 that she was attempting an unwarranted task. 
 If there were such a thing as truthfulness in 
 this world, it was surely shining on her now 
 out of this strong man's eyes. If clean-heart- 
 edness could sound in a voice, it was to be 
 heard in every deep, steady tone of this man 
 beside her. Once more the memory of his 
 words beside Donald's grave ebbed into the tu- 
 mult of her emotions, and she forgot the after- 
 noon's grim purpose. With a warm rush of 
 gratitude in which there were some danger- 
 
I04 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ous, sweet throbbing things yet undefined, she 
 began to prepare the way for her confession. 
 But before she could speak, he was talking 
 again, and her chance, for a time, was gone. 
 
 ^'Someone to talk to is a godsend out here 
 on the desert,'' he was saying, with a slow 
 smile, "and I never blamed this fellow for run- 
 ning on so about his womany ideas. In fact, 
 if a man hasn't a little company out here, he 
 gets in a bad way. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of the 'desert loco'? 
 Probably it's fairly scarce in New York City, 
 although I've not been there to see. But out 
 here it's a troublesome thing. Whisky brings 
 it mainly, but sometimes it comes to men from 
 having no one to talk to, and nothing to look 
 at except the desert, and nothing to think about 
 except the things they didn't do. And so they 
 talk to themselves, which is bad for them, and 
 they go to remembering nicer places where 
 they once lived, and that makes it worse. 
 And after a while they grow quiet and queer 
 and begin to hate things, themselves first of 
 all. Only" — and he looked up with a laugh 
 that showed his understanding of the subject's 
 strange psychology — "you'd never know it." 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 105 
 
 "You mean — they conceal it?'' asked Alva, 
 puzzled. 
 
 ''Just that," he said, with the enthusiasm 
 that always preceded a quick flow of words. 
 *'And yet I don't reckon that we desert folks 
 are much different from city people, after all. 
 The loco man only lives a little more inside 
 himself than you and I. We all have our own 
 little worlds right in our own heads, and the 
 funny part of it is that every man's world is 
 different from the next fellow's. Of course, 
 we think the world we see is the same that 
 everyone else sees — and yet our thoughts make 
 it a different world for everyone of us. Did 
 you ever wonder, for instance, how it would 
 be to look at things with another person's mind. 
 My hat, here, looks gray to me — but it may be 
 white to you." 
 
 "Tt is white," said Alva positively, then 
 laughed. 
 
 "No," he grinned happily. "Not while it's 
 my hat. But you see what I mean. People 
 get notions, sometimes about articles like this 
 hat — more often about other people — princi- 
 pally about injuries that they think another 
 person has done them. And they feed on their 
 
io6 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 notion and twist it around in their minds and 
 chew on it till it gets in pretty bad shape. 
 Finally, they really go loco about that one 
 thing — ^but" — and he smiled again — "you 
 would never know it. They go about their 
 daily work just the same. They seem just the 
 same. They are just the same, except for that 
 one little kink in their minds, which they're 
 smart enough to hide from you — sometimes. 
 
 *Take Danny the Bum, for instance. Once 
 Danny had a wife and family, but the whisky 
 beat him. So he cleared out and went pros- 
 pecting on the desert. A few years of that 
 and Danny began to have notions. Because 
 he let them grow on him, they changed his 
 mind. You might say they ate it up. 
 Now, I can't look inside of Danny's head to- 
 day, but I'll cheerfully bet my share of the 
 Gun Sight Mine that it's just the queerest, 
 crookedest place you'd ever see — with a lot of 
 little black hates, that never get anywhere, run- 
 ning around like mad inside and killing off 
 everything decent that tries to grow. 
 
 '*And so we have to keep our heads as level 
 as we can, out here," he said soberly. 'T get 
 notions myself sometimes, but I get rid of them 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 107 
 
 by talking to other people about them. Don't 
 you?" 
 
 ''Y-e-e-e-s/' she answered slowly — and then, 
 with a deep breath, put her suspicions away, 
 she hoped, forever. ^'Indeed I do. And I 
 must tell you something right away — " 
 
 "Oh, let me say my piece first,'* he inter- 
 rupted boyishly. "About this — this — Well, 
 now — how can I say it? These foolish love 
 ideas that a man will have — do you reckon 
 that they could ever be loco ideas, too?" 
 
 "They, too," she answered solemnly, though 
 her face twitched. "In fact, they can spring 
 up from nothing at all and subsist on less real 
 fact than anything else in the whole wide 
 world." 
 
 "Golly !" he muttered, seeming to concede her 
 superior knowledge on the point. "That's 
 surely mean for himf* 
 
 "But you've already said that your friend 
 built up his fancy merely on a picture," she ob- 
 jected pointedly. "You couldn't ask for a bet- 
 ter sample of the loco than that." 
 
 "But he isn't loco'' he stated calmly. "He's 
 going to get her." 
 
 "He only thinks so," she retorted. "That's 
 
io8 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 his notion. There may be obstacles that are 
 simply insuperable." 
 
 ''He would make them disappear/' was the 
 answer. ''Don't forget that they would seem 
 insuperable only to her. Don't you suppose 
 that if he could show her — " 
 
 But Alva had risen to her feet and was 
 looking at the watch at her belt with an ex- 
 clamation of surprise. Their hour — and his — 
 had flown. 
 
 And so, presently, they were walking back 
 to Magnet in the early evening, the man amaz- 
 ingly happy in spite of the fact that something 
 had been left unsaid — the woman with her 
 mind swept clean of one ill, but wordless with 
 the strange pangs of another. For each step 
 that took them farther away from the Valley 
 brought Alva farther away from that other 
 dread vale into whose shadows she had been 
 descending until a saner force had caught her 
 up, and she softened to her companion swiftly, 
 her sensitive lips quivering with the confession 
 still unspoken, her hand more friendly when, 
 swinging, it happened to touch his own. Some 
 curious power in him seemed bringing out all 
 that was truly woman in her, and although she 
 tried to fight oflf its ascendency, yet something 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 109 
 
 was always staying her hand, whispering that 
 to-day she had entered on a new Hfe through 
 her Samaritan's guidance, a Hfe that was both 
 sweeter and infinitely more complete. Once 
 she feared, momentarily, that she might have 
 been the subject of his mild dissertation on 
 "notions," but finally saw that it was, of course, 
 impossible and so took heart again. 
 
 'Tt's always daytime longest in the East," 
 he said, as they paused on the last hummock 
 that sloped down to the town, and he pointed 
 to the glowing hills. "Night comes first where 
 the sun goes down, and you think the day is 
 gone. But look back the other way and you'll 
 see them saving up a little sunlight for you 
 right at the end — to go on until to-morrow. 
 It's that way with 'most everything, I guess. 
 But, I will be leaving you, about here. The 
 only thing we forgot to-day was the thing we 
 set out to do — to locate a claim for you. But 
 if that's all that you'll blame me for, I can 
 figure on getting my usual sleep. Some day" 
 — and her newly timid eyes could not combat 
 his boldness — "some day we'll make you a real 
 owner. You have a claim already that you 
 don't know about." 
 
 As Alva walked on alone through the out- 
 
no HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 skirts toward her establishment, she could not 
 resist a backward glance. Although, as he 
 had said, they had left undone the thing they 
 had set out to do, yet she knew that something 
 infinitely more important had been accom- 
 plished, for she had been left with so complete 
 a sense of trust as to be almost happy. In 
 this clear-thinking frame of mind, it would 
 have been futile to deny that the man loved 
 her, for both words and actions had made it 
 perfectly plain. And, when she came to think 
 of it, there seemed no good reason why she 
 should thrust back anything so human or 
 so wonderfully sweet. Even Donald, she 
 thought with a sudden throb, would not ob- 
 ject to her using so genuine a love to aid her 
 ends. And so she did not stop at the little 
 cemetery as she passed. She would ask no 
 more questions of her grave. She had gained 
 a stronger, saner aid to-day than any morbid 
 deductions could secure. She had located a 
 claim, and she would develop it. 
 
 She smiled to herself, wondering if he knew 
 on how many points he had touched her. 
 Also, she wondered again as to his quiet talk 
 on "notions," until a remembrance of the 
 phrase "without any crooked streaks in it" 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST iii 
 
 came to mind. Could he have been thinking 
 of her, after all? Was he thinking of her 
 nowf She looked back again and was con- 
 fessedly disappointed. She saw from the way 
 in which he strode steadily through the brush 
 that he had put his mind to work on something 
 else. Still looking, however, she saw him en- 
 ter the main street of the town near its head, 
 where a group of men were waiting for him. 
 Alva thought their attitudes showed that a 
 question was being put to him for decision. 
 Presently the unknown matter seemed to be 
 settled, for he was the first to move on, taking 
 one of the group with him. When their steps 
 took them in the direction of the Miners' Hall, 
 Alva felt that something must have happened 
 in Magnet that called for action. 
 
 A faint thrill went through her as she saw 
 the camp's crude legal machinery being set in 
 motion. Someone had made a complaint. 
 Someone had said, "Such and such a man has 
 done wrong," and had produced his proofs. 
 Whereupon, a small body of men, self-ap- 
 pointed, came together, patiently reviewed the 
 evidence, deliberated in their quiet way, and 
 then acquitted or dealt out punishment with a 
 finality that brooked no appeal. 
 
112 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 Yet, in spite of her appreciation of its gen- 
 uineness, Alva felt far from sure that the ma- 
 chinery would always work so smoothly. Al- 
 though the Vigilance Committee would act 
 quickly enough on a recent and flagrant crime, 
 yet this looser form of government naturally 
 called for very certain proofs, and if the evi- 
 dence did not convince at once, the case would 
 probably be shrugged away. And so, for all 
 the new faith with which the past hour had 
 inspired her, she began to feel almost as im- 
 potent to secure full justice when the time ar- 
 rived as on her first day; a saddened mood 
 that held her until she reached the door of her 
 tent. There she was again reminded of yes- 
 terday's hysterical decisions, for on her door- 
 step sat the forlorn figure of Danny the Bum, 
 squinting up at an imaginary adversary with 
 whom he was carrying on a mumbled conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 Never a tall man, various causes had short- 
 ened and bowed the unfortunate Danny until, 
 in his huddled attitude, he looked almost like 
 a dwarf. His torn, misshapen khaki clothes, 
 with their pristine brown blackened by the con- 
 stant rubbing of food-greasy hands, hung on 
 his spare frame as limply as a towel on a post. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 113 
 
 Circling his red, leathery forehead, he wore 
 the rim of a battered derby hat through whose 
 crown his uncut gray thatch thrust up Hke a 
 clump of withered bunch grass. On his right 
 foot he wore a clumsy brogan — on his left, the 
 top of an Oxford tie. 
 
 ''Danny," said Alva pityingly, "I want you 
 to work for me for a few days. Perhaps, if 
 you keep sober, you can earn enough to buy a 
 pair of shoes." 
 
 The man squinted up at her cautiously, then 
 shook his head in utter dejection. 
 
 ''Shoes," he said hopelessly, ''shoes is four 
 dollars!" 
 
 "But that's only four days' work," Alva re- 
 monstrated wonderingly. "Surely you can 
 keep sober that long. Don't be afraid, Danny. 
 Stay in the kitchen when you're not working. 
 I won't let them get you." 
 
 'Will you?" the man quavered, while his 
 blurred visage lighted up with hope. "Kin I 
 sleep there, too? Night's the hard time fer 
 me. But, say!" he cried excitedly. "If there 
 really wu:^ shoes in it, I c'u'd lock myself in, 
 now couldn't I? 
 
 "But, no," he went on, and plucked thought- 
 fully at the hair protruding through his hat. 
 
114 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "I reckon, after all, it wouldn't be just right 
 to confine a big business man like me at night 
 when things are going on. I — I — I got to 
 'tend to my affairs, you see. I — I got business 
 to transact.'^ 
 
 "A claim, of course," smiled Alva, while she 
 puzzled over ways to straighten him out. 
 
 'That's wot," said Danny keenly. ''You 
 know how it is. You've got one, too ?" 
 
 "Perhaps — perhaps I have, Danny," the 
 woman answered. "I don't really know." 
 
 "Like me," said Danny promptly. "A 
 felluh took mine away from me once, but I 
 can't think who it was. Or where the claim 
 lay. I'm sure it wasn't old Peter Silk, becuz 
 he took Mexican Frank's just as soon as he 
 heard the reward was out, and it wasn't Dick 
 Randall, becuz he got Jaffray's — " 
 
 " Danny!*' the woman cried suddenly, with a 
 note of horror in her voice. "How did Ran- 
 dall get the Jaffray claim?" 
 
 Unprepared for the sudden attack, the man 
 shrank* back as if he had been struck. His 
 face grew even more vacuous than before. He 
 seemed paralyzed with fright. 
 
 ''Danny r commanded the woman savagely. 
 "Tell me what I want to know, or I'll have you 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST iiS 
 
 put in jail." Gripping him convulsively by the 
 arms, she shook the impotent shell of a man 
 to and fro till his teeth rattled. "Tell me in- 
 stantly how he got that claim !'' 
 
 'T — I — I — I ain't sayin' how he got it," 
 chattered Danny. **He took it, that's all I 
 know. And you won't put me in jail nuther — 
 'cuz there ain't any jail. Young Jaffray — 
 he's dead, you know — deader than a doornail 
 — nice, young felluh, wot won't ever come 
 back. He wouldn't do nuthin' to Randall, no 
 he wouldn't — and Randall, he can't do nuthin' 
 to him/' Danny's voice rose to a quavering 
 falsetto, and he looked wildly about, like a 
 trapped animal trying to escape. "But he 
 didn't fuss with him much. He had rights, 
 you see — not like a stick-up man that needs 
 money like he did last night. He hit me in 
 the eye, he did — down there at Tiger Lil's." 
 
 Alva's grip relaxed and her hands fell limply 
 at her sides. Incoherent as was the jumble 
 of words, the accursed suspicion instantly 
 leaped into life again and built up another 
 swiftly linking chain of proof. At other 
 times, her saner judgment would have con- 
 temptuously rejected the worthless mixture of 
 hearsay and falsity, but to-day, in spite of all 
 
ii6 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 her good spirits of a moment ago, Alva sud- 
 denly became irresponsible. The virulent 
 sickness that had been growing in her for so 
 long needed only a shock like this to drain her 
 vitality away like blood drawn off into a basin. 
 Unhearing and colorless, nauseated by the re- 
 turn of the old conviction, she swayed dizzily 
 to and fro. 
 
 No sooner did Danny feel himself free than 
 his small stock of courage returned and his 
 features brightened. He did not know why 
 the woman's voice had failed her or why her 
 face had grown ashen, but at the first faint 
 symptoms of distress, he felt impelled to offer 
 all the valuable information at his command. 
 
 "Oh, don't you worry about what I'm tellin' 
 you," Danny expostulated. "It's all true. 
 He's a bad man. I've got him all writ down 
 in my little book — all I see him do, so's I kin 
 read it to myself every night." Fumbling in 
 his tattered vest, he whipped out a battered, 
 coverless notebook, and waved it before her 
 unseeing eyes. "Oh, he's a regguler business 
 man, Danny is. Everything he sees and hears 
 he writes down and keeps. All kinds of 
 things/' he whispered mysteriously in her ear. 
 "Skin games he sees — and murders — and 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 117 
 
 places he got hand-outs — and ways to find lost 
 mines at night — and lots more things that'll 
 make him a rich man some day. 
 
 *'Last night, it was, I see him a-talkin' to 
 you — and I writes it down. And I followed 
 him when he went away — and Til get him yet. 
 You don't know where he went, but the hook 
 knows! 'Tiger LiFs' — that's where he went. 
 Oh, hoh ! So you didn't know he was a friend 
 of hers!" Danny exclaimed delightedly, as 
 Alva shrank back in disgust. *'You bet he's 
 her friend! Everybody knows it. Your old 
 Sarah knows it, too. 
 
 "But say! He hit me in the eye. He 
 shouldn't have did that — it hurt. And so I 
 followed him — all night I followed him — and 
 when I came back, I writes it in me little book. 
 And that's what makes me a valible man in 
 this yere community," he continued proudly. 
 'That's why they got to pay attention when 
 I talk. I got information on important points, 
 you see. And some day these yere big men 
 around yere — they'll get into their ottomobiles 
 and come to my office and say: 
 
 " 'Danny,' they'll say, 'you know and we 
 know that things ha' gotta be regulated in this 
 yere camp, and we hear that you've got a lot 
 
ii8 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 of big ideas in your little book. Now we're 
 willing to make a great big offer just to take 
 one little peek inside. We hereby offer you as 
 much as ten thousand — why, pshaw, no — 
 money ain't nuthin' to us, or to you, nuther — 
 we offer you a hundred thousand dollars in 
 good hard cash just for that one little valible 
 book.' 
 
 "And then I looks 'em over, and while I'm 
 pretending to admire their ottomobiles and 
 their silk hats and their big, thick watch chains, 
 I see 'em a-winkin' at each other. And wot 
 do I know then? I knows they're figurin' to 
 get my book too cheap! 
 
 "And so I gets werry, werry ca'm — and I 
 leans back in my revolvin' chair — wot goes 
 round and round when you touch it just with 
 your little finger — and I puts my feet on my 
 big desk, and I says to 'em : 'Gentlemen,' says 
 I, with a yawn and a stretch, Tm sorry to say 
 that my brekfuss ain't settin' just ezackly right 
 this morning, and I ain't overanxious to do 
 business. You make that offer of yours a 
 bonded lease f er ten times that little bunch of 
 money, and mebbe I'll take time to consider it. 
 Good day, gentlemen — good day !' " 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ALTHOUGH Alva woke long before 
 dawn, a splitting headache held her 
 inert among her tumbled coverings, staring up 
 the ridgepole of her tent as she thought she 
 had stared up into the darkness all night long. 
 Not until the long, hot fingers of the midsum- 
 mer sun lanced through the flap of her tent 
 and she heard old Sarah pottering around the 
 stove, could she rouse herself to take up an- 
 other day's false duties. Heavy, dull-eyed, 
 and listless, she went about the dreary busi- 
 ness of dressing with never a look into the 
 mirror that would have given her some much- 
 needed advice, and finally joined the old 
 woman in the kitchen, her hair wound loosely 
 about her head and her face congested with 
 the night's impotent thinking. 
 
 "Well, this is the day you're popular!" re- 
 marked the hardy frontiers-woman cheerily, 
 as she stuffed greasewood into the stove. 
 "The Town-site Company's big dance comes 
 
 off to-night. They'll all be honeyin' around 
 
 119 
 
I20 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 here soon. I wisht I wuz young and beauti- 
 ful again. Td like to whirl a few meself.'' 
 
 ''Dance?" echoed Alva, with a mirthless 
 laugh. *'Why should anyone want to dance 
 heref 
 
 "You'll see why soon enough when the 
 young felluhs begin snoopin' round," was 
 Sarah's sage retort. "You can't keep young 
 blood still, even in the Funerals. I guess 
 you'll go, fast enough. I never see a pretty 
 girl yet that wasn't crazy to be pestered to 
 death over a dance, and you needn't think 
 you'll get by, missy !" 
 
 "That's what / say," agreed a breezy voice 
 in the doorway, as Mrs. Baker's bulky figure 
 announced her morning call. "You and me 
 and Andy's wife and that freckled-faced 
 misery from Bindelmann's books ain't very 
 many to entertain three hundred men, but we 
 ought to try it if only for society's sake. 
 Baker says the Committee scraped the desert 
 clean as far south as the Borax Works, and 
 only bagged a squaw. But the new stage 
 driver claims that Ash Meadows is sending the 
 spring tender's sister if she can only find a 
 somewheres-new flour sack for an evening 
 waist, and Amargosa's good for a half dozen 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 121 
 
 Mormon calamities 'most always, so I guess 
 we can keep them hopping. For the land's 
 sake, Alva! What is the matter with your 
 eyes? Don't say you won't goT 
 
 "I hadn't thought of it," was the listless re- 
 ply. "I don't see why I should." 
 
 "I don't see why you shouldn't,'' retorted the 
 keen-eyed Mrs. Baker promptly. "See here, 
 now. Don't you get queer and catch this 
 'desert loco.' I know you're always wearing 
 black, but I always figure that we owe a heap 
 more to the living than — Why, you don't 
 want people to go to thinking that you're 
 snobby and stuck-up, do you? You can't! 
 You're a business woman!" 
 
 The older woman surveyed the other's slip- 
 shod attire for a moment with a searching eye, 
 and then let her voice soften with sympathy. 
 'Tf there's anybody around here that ain't 
 treating you just exactly right and making 
 you feel unhappy, you just let me know," she 
 said. **But, pshaw! What's the use of talk- 
 ing about it! Of course you'll go — with 
 Blewitt, too — or I miss my guess. He's had 
 the camp's only full-dress suit, including pants, 
 airing on a bush for nearly a week." 
 
 "Don't put too much of your money on 
 
122 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 Blewitt, Mis' Baker/' remarked Sarah, while 
 the two worthies exchanged knowing glances. 
 '1 guess I know who's got Miss Pretty picked 
 out long ago." 
 
 *'Sarah," commanded Alva curtly, "go see 
 if the tables are ready. We've pottered along 
 this morning till we're very late." Then she 
 turned to Mrs. Baker. 
 
 *'Yes. I'll go to the dance to-night," she 
 said, with a hot face and glittering eyes. 
 '*But it won't be with the man you're thinking 
 of. No, I won't tell you my reasons," as the 
 other showed her surprise. ^'You'll know why 
 some day. All of you will know it." 
 
 'Why! I didn't know he was married T 
 quavered her friend. ''Don't tell me he's been 
 deceiving you, Alva !" 
 
 Alva gave the other a look of mingled ex- 
 asperation and wonder. 
 
 "Is that the only reason you can think of, 
 Amelia ? Can't a man do anything else that's 
 wrong?" 
 
 "Not — ^not — not so's you wouldn't go with 
 him to a dance!" stammered Mrs. Baker. 
 "Why — I went once with a horse thief, down 
 to Hackberry! He told me they were after 
 him, all right, before we went, but he figured 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 123 
 
 he could go to the dance and get away again 
 before they began to bother him. 
 
 " Tm the Hckingest best waltzer in any five 
 counties north of the Coloraydo, AmeHa/ says 
 he, 'and I kin prove it, too — if they'll only give 
 me a show for my white alley.' 
 
 "But they were that sore at him they 
 only gave us time for the grand march and a 
 stingy little polka before they spoke to him, 
 and the poor fellow never had his chance. 
 You see, Alva — dances are different. People 
 have got to be on their good behavior at them. 
 Killings and foolishness don't go. Well — 
 think it over before you go to giving up your 
 friends. Men ain't as bad as they seem. 
 They've just got to be doing things all the 
 time, I guess. Here! Take this. It's a let- 
 ter I brought down from the post office for 
 you. I guess the man who addressed it didn't 
 like to give himself away." 
 
 With breakfast over, Alva soon found proof 
 of Sarah's shrewdness in the shamelessly loi- 
 tering tactics of several sheep-eyed young 
 miners around the front door, and so made a 
 quick retreat to the kitchen before she could 
 be approached. Here she leaned heavily 
 against the rear doorway, with her forehead 
 
124 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 pressed against her arm, and stared out at the 
 fierce, hot morning. 
 
 The softer lights of spring had given way 
 long since to a merciless, dry brightness that 
 came on as soon as the sun blazed up over the 
 glittering ranges. It seemed as if night were 
 no sooner gone than day leaped up, full armed 
 and fiendishly eager to clamp down the brazen 
 dome of noontide on the sun-baked plain. 
 
 And as Alva stood there staring with fixed 
 fierceness at the yellow ground, where the 
 beady-eyed lizards flickered through the thin 
 shadows of the greasewood and the ugly ref- 
 use of the camp glittered, unburied, in the 
 searching light, it came to her that she, ap- 
 parently, was the only person in Magnet who 
 knew the man Randall as he really was. Long 
 ago she had acknowledged his strength, but 
 she had never seen till now how cleverly it 
 cloaked his selfishness. 
 
 She began to see two personalities in him: 
 One of the two was keen, purposeful, and ac- 
 tive-minded, even charitable and gentle where 
 it suited his aims. The other was animated 
 by a calculating selfishness that was controlled 
 by an exceptionally adroit brain. Of course, 
 there was no such thing as remorse in his char- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 125 
 
 acter, for he could not afford to waste time on 
 it. Nor was there pity, except where policy 
 dictated that it should be shown. 
 
 And so she glowered, moody-eyed, from her 
 doorway, feeding her over-wrought mind on 
 miserable thoughts until she had nothing but 
 hatred for a man who could deceive her so 
 shrewdly. 
 
 Alongside the tent the brush crackled as 
 someone strode hastily through it from the 
 street in front. Before she knew it, she found 
 herself looking into Randall's eyes. 
 
 Taller and noticeably broader in his work- 
 ing clothes than in the better-shaped garments 
 she had always seen him wear, he dropped his 
 shining lunch bucket on the ground and 
 laughed freely as he put out his hand to re- 
 strain the shrinking that he thought was due 
 only to surprise. 
 
 *T figured you'd be here," he said, with a 
 twinkle in his eye over the success of his small 
 stratagem. "Those young friends of yours 
 are thicker than flies around a sugar barrel 
 out in front. I've only a minute now before 
 I go on shift — but I want you to go with me 
 to that dance to-night. Will you?" 
 
 Vigorous, clear-eyed and clean, there was an 
 
126 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 almost oppressive freshness of youth and 
 strength in his movements. Less Hke a man 
 to-day than Hke a big, fearless, laughing boy, 
 with a broad, deep chest and a full brown 
 throat that swelled against the band of his 
 shirt, he thrust such an overpowering sense of 
 virility on her as to make her head swim. She 
 threw up her arm convulsively, as if to ward 
 off something. 
 
 A thousand thoughts flashed through her 
 mind in the tumult, but out of all her mingled 
 feelings of fear and attraction a single impulse 
 rose dominant, and that, curiously enough, con- 
 tained nothing that concerned Donald. It was 
 one of purely personal anger — of disgust at 
 a man who would deliberately leave her com- 
 panionship to seek that of a common mining- 
 camp entertainer. 
 
 ''After your careful confessions of yester- 
 day," she said, with biting distinctness, ''I did 
 not believe that all women would seem alike to 
 you — but I see I was mistaken." 
 
 At this curious answer to his invitation, the 
 man drew back a step and stood still. 
 Whether or not he was surprised by the sud- 
 den attack, he gave no sign of anything ex- 
 cept the most acute attention. With eyes as 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 127 
 
 steady as his motionless body, he stood watch- 
 ing and waiting silently, as if he saw that she 
 had not yet had all her say. 
 
 Translating this as pure brazenness and 
 scorning him the more for it, she lowered her 
 voice so as to make her words bite deeper. 
 
 *'Why come to me for your dances?'' she 
 asked, through her set teeth, while her eyes 
 glittered. *'Why not seek those who are more 
 accustomed to make your entertainment? 
 Can it be that you, like the ^friend' you spoke 
 of so feelingly yesterday, are seeking inspira- 
 tion? What makes you think you can find it 
 here? You flatter me too much. I had not 
 guessed I would ever be used to serve so in- 
 teresting a purpose. In fact, I must confess 
 that I had never considered entering the race 
 at all — and shall have to decline now.'' 
 
 His face whitened perceptibly and his brows 
 knitted, but he did not step back. With his 
 eyes still quiet on hers, he seemed to be try- 
 ing to understand the nature of her hot anger 
 rather than its words. 
 
 She felt this and instantly grew furious. 
 It was too much as if he were a judicial parent 
 meditating the tantrums of a petulant child. 
 
 "Go!" she commanded contemptuously. 
 
128 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ''You sicken me. I only wonder if your curi- 
 ous sense of decency has been waked enough 
 to keep you from approaching me again. I 
 shall go to your dance to-night, but it will not 
 be with anyone so magnificently adaptable as 
 yourself. Have I made myself clear?'' 
 
 ''No, Miss Leigh," he answered quietly, 
 "you have not. It so happens that I know 
 what you're driving at — but you are com- 
 pletely mistaken." 
 
 She stared for a moment, and then laughed 
 derisively. "Do you ask me to disbelieve what 
 everyone in the camp knows? Because I am 
 the last to know must I be the first to be de- 
 ceived again?" 
 
 "Miss Leigh," he said, while his strong, level 
 eyes began to take command, "doesn't your 
 good sense tell you that you've got me figured 
 out all wrong here? Of course, if you have 
 what you think is proof of something against 
 me, it would be hard to leave it out of your 
 calculations, but let all that go for a minute. 
 Ask yourself about me — just plain me. Have 
 I acted like a dishonorable man? What is it 
 that backs up your proof? What is behind it 
 all?" 
 
 Alva hesitated before she cast oflf all re- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 129 
 
 straint. His words demanded the precise an- 
 swer which she could not give. Confronted 
 with the necessity of flatly accusing him of 
 consorting with abandoned women, her proofs 
 seemed so pitifully thin and weak that she 
 dared not face the look that would surely come 
 into those relentless eyes. 
 
 She put up her hand in a repelling gesture 
 that seemed to express both weariness and dis- 
 gust. The truth was that most of it was fear. 
 
 ''Why should I have a reason?" she asked, 
 with a swift attack to which, she knew, there 
 could be no defense. "The matter is entirely 
 personal. As a matter of fact, I — I — I — have 
 taken a dislike to you — a personal dislike. 
 What is to be looked into there? Even if 
 nothing could be proved about you, I fail to see 
 why I should be forced to discuss my private 
 tastes. Yes, we can let it stand on that," she 
 went on, as he began to draw back. ''You will 
 not be far wrong if you think there are things 
 about you that I find detestable — personal qual- 
 ities that are intensely repugnant — things that 
 I— I—" 
 
 Alva's voice faded away before the awful 
 look that came into the man's eyes. Astonish- 
 ment, sorrow, pitiful disappointment, and a mo- 
 
I30 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 mentarily self-accusing shame swept across his 
 face in waves. His chin fell, and he grew 
 almost haggard. He shrank back as if he had 
 been lashed with a whip, his eyes full of 
 mortal hurt. She had cut deep into the only 
 spot that he could never hope to protect. 
 
 *1 guess — I guess I can't say much against 
 that," he said, in a colorless voice. 'T reckon 
 it wouldn't be much use to try. Thafs some- 
 thing I can't ever beat — no — not ever." His 
 eyes were dull and lifeless — a blank wall be- 
 hind which he was passing through cruel tor- 
 tures. His hand, generally so expressive in 
 gestures, moved weakly as he tried to collect 
 his thoughts. *'I wonder how I was so big a 
 fool as not to see your feelings before. Per- 
 haps I could have changed some, then — or 
 tried to fix myself up different. But probably 
 not. Because if I'm a mean, low fellow, as- 
 sociating with bums, male and female — why, 
 then, I reckon I have always been one — and it 
 wouldn't do much good to try to change." 
 
 He paused and raised his haggard face. 
 
 "I guess I'll go now," he said. 'There isn't 
 anything that I can do or say. I know, of 
 course, just as I always have known, that there 
 are plenty of things about me that would seem 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 131 
 
 unpleasant to a lady, but IVe always kept hop- 
 ing that they were only the little things that 
 could be changed — that she might even like to 
 change, so as to show them as her work. I've 
 hoped that they were only stringers, and that 
 the main vein was just a little higher grade. 
 
 *'But I reckon I didn't make a close enough 
 assay. Your weigh-up seems to have been a 
 little more correct. Still — I can't help wish- 
 ing that you'd tell me why — that you'd be fair 
 and show your samples. Somehow, it seems 
 as if you had made your inspection just a teeny 
 bit late. Because, if my clothes aren't clean, 
 or my mind polished up and perfumed, or my 
 remarks tied up with little pink ribbons, why, 
 they weren't that way yesterday, either — " 
 
 He halted, struck by a sudden thought. 
 
 "Nor yesterday — nor yesterday, either," he 
 repeated. 
 
 For some reason, his eyes lost their dulled 
 look, and grew bright with returning vitality. 
 He turned back and scrutinized her as she 
 stood with head averted and hand put out to 
 motion him away. He looked once more — 
 with a hungering, irresistible probing of his re- 
 lentless eyes — then made one great step for- 
 ward and caught her hand, 
 
132 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "It isn't that — and you know it!" he whis- 
 pered fiercely. ''You couldn't hate me so after 
 all these weeks." 
 
 ''How dare you ?" she flamed. "Unloose my 
 hand! Go! I do hate you and despise you, 
 just as I said — " She broke into a sudden 
 storm of tears and hid her face in her arm. 
 
 "Z}(? you hate me?" he murmured exultantly 
 in her ear. "Why, Alva — I don't care. Go 
 right ahead — you can hurt me all you want to 
 now/' 
 
 "Go!" she cried from behind her shielding 
 arm. "I have nothing to say." 
 
 "Yes. I'll go," he answered happily, and 
 released her hand. He laughed outright and 
 squared his shoulders. His precious posses- 
 sion had not been stolen, after all. "You 
 wouldn't say such foolish things about me un- 
 less the real reason behind it all was no good 
 — and so I'm not afraid of that one, either. 
 Good-by — till to-night." He picked up his 
 pail, and was gone. 
 
 When Alva's next connected thought came 
 to her, she was in her dining room, staring 
 around among her empty tables. She felt weak 
 and shell-like — as if she had been sapped of all 
 power to think. The. moment he had begun to 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 133 
 
 speak for himself — at the mere sound of his 
 voice — she had weakly lost faith in her convic- 
 tions again. Something was wrong — some- 
 where — everywhere — and she rubbed her hand 
 against her forehead in an attempt to ease her 
 troubled mind. 
 
 Something scratched her cheek, and she saw 
 the letter that Mrs. Baker had given her, 
 clutched in her fingers. She studied the 
 crudely printed address with puzzled eyes, 
 caught the scent of musk which established the 
 letter's source better than a signature could 
 have done, then opened it, her lips curling with 
 disdain. 
 
 Ask Dick Randall why they never tried to find 
 the man that shot young Jaffray. 
 
 Alva threw back her head and laughed — 
 loud and hysterically. At the sound of a step 
 behind her, she turned, still laughing wildly, 
 and saw Duncan, clean shaven and well 
 dressed, standing in the doorway. 
 
 ''About that dance to-night,'' he began 
 eagerly, with a fatuous smile over his recep- 
 tion. "I came — " 
 
 "To ask me to go," interrupted Alva. 'T'll 
 be delighted." 
 
134 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 She met him halfway and gave him both her 
 hands, her wide eyes and heightened color giv- 
 ing out so vivid a sense of what he thought was 
 pleasure that his face reddened, and he stam- 
 mered. 
 
 "It's about time you asked me!" she heard 
 a wildly vibrant voice saying. ''You! To say 
 all those nice things to me only two nights ago 
 and then never come near me for a whole day ! 
 Is that the way you treat ladies up in Idaho?" 
 Her voice, surely — ^but where did such strange 
 words come from ? 
 
 "But you big, good-looking men are all 
 alike," her voice went on, with a gayly railing 
 note. "If I told you that I'd refused another 
 man to wait for you, you'd be so conceited that 
 you'd never dance with me at all — now, would 
 you?" And this strange, warm-breathed, big- 
 eyed Alva was suddenly in overpowering prox- 
 imity to him, her fresh, red mouth pouting her 
 mock anger dangerously close to his own. 
 "Don't tell me that the only friend I have in 
 camp would treat me that way." 
 
 "But Randall — " the man stammered, un- 
 willing to believe his ears. 
 
 "Oh, if you don't want me, just say so," she 
 said airily. "Are you making up other men's 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 135 
 
 dance cards for them? Isn't mine enough? 
 Run along, now, and don't bother me. You're 
 a nuisance. What time shall you come for 
 me?" And she saw someone's fingers ac- 
 tually twisting a button on his coat. 
 
 ^'Around nine o'clock," he answered thickly, 
 and reached out his arms, only to feel her slip 
 tantalizingly out of his grasp. 
 
 Noon and the dinner hour came. 
 
 Wherever Alva passed between the lines of 
 crowded tables, men covertly wiped their lips 
 and leaned back with a smile to speak about the 
 dance. 
 
 "Duncan's rightly no waltzer, ma'am. 
 You'll not be forgetting your real friends to- 
 night." 
 
 "I'm Mormonish in my ways, and pray be- 
 fore each dance. Kin I start work now on that 
 third two-step?" 
 
 "Make him show his union card, lady. Me 
 — I got a certificate from the gov'ment on my 
 dancing !" 
 
 At the end of one of the tables, however, 
 she encountered another element, for as she 
 paused there, a man with a heavy black beard, 
 whom she recognized as Randall's relief at the 
 Cactus shaft, spoke to her in an undertone: 
 
136 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "Is Duncan your real choice for to-night, 
 ma'am?'' 
 
 "Yes. I expect to go with Mr. Duncan," 
 Alva answered, before she thought. "But I 
 hardly see why you ask." 
 
 Dropping her eyes rather casually to meet 
 his own, she was surprised to find them entirely 
 lacking in the semi-flirtatious interest she had 
 expected. On the contrary, the black-bearded 
 man seemed weighing some policy in his mind, 
 and the flavor of watchfulness and possible in- 
 terference that the look held made her flush 
 with anger. 
 
 "Are you quite sure that it is your business 
 to know with whom I go to dances ?" she asked 
 icily. 
 
 "Well," answered the man, with a deadly 
 definiteness that she had encountered once or 
 twice before among such men in Magnet, "I 
 simply wanted to know, and now I do know. 
 No harm done, lady. Scull me the cake, Jim." 
 
 An hour later, the tool boy from the Cactus 
 shaft knocked at her door and handed in a note 
 nipped twixt greasy thumb and finger. The 
 note had been written hastily in pencil — and 
 there was a drop of oil on the outside. Alva's 
 eyes hardened as soon as she saw it. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 137 
 
 "There is no answer/' she said, and, tearing 
 the note in pieces, she let it fall on the floor. 
 As the boy lounged away, with his tongue in 
 his cheek, she looked down and read on an up- 
 turned fragment, *'don't.'' Alva slid her foot 
 across the paper and blotted out the word. 
 
 That afternoon she spent with Mrs. Baker, 
 who, after puzzling over her friend's alternate 
 fits of gayety and moroseness, finally spoke her 
 mind as follows: 
 
 "YouVe got just the same amount of sense 
 to-day as a week-old jack rabbit. Something 
 tells me you'll be making a lot of trouble to- 
 night among the men. I must say I never 
 figured you were such a perfectly scandalous 
 flirt." 
 
 The woman with the ever-growing pain in 
 the back of her head looked utterly incredulous. 
 
 ''Flirtr she echoed hollowly. "Then the 
 desert has indeed changed me." And, after 
 another moment's staring at the calm and col- 
 lected postmistress, she murmured an inaud- 
 ible good-by, and slipped out of the door, a 
 thoughtful, almost frightened, look on her face. 
 
 As she passed down the street, she saw Ran- 
 dall. He was standing on a corner, talking in 
 low tones with one of the men who had met 
 
138 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 him the afternoon before. As she passed by 
 with only a faint inclination of her head she 
 heard the fragmentary sentence, "He bought 
 a pair of spurs at four o'clock/* Almost at 
 once, a step sounded behind her, and she felt 
 him walking at her side. 
 
 "Unless you want to make both of us look 
 foolish, you might let me walk a little way with 
 you," he said. "People are watching." 
 
 "I'm not responsible," she answered coldly. 
 
 "Perhaps not," was the reply, "and I'm risk- 
 ing things much worse than that which you 
 might say, but I must tell you again that you 
 may make a mistake to-night — " 
 
 "I shall ask you to leave me here," she in- 
 terrupted. "I don't care to have anything to 
 do with you — and I'm quite able to take care of 
 myself." 
 
 He looked at her with a wistful expression 
 in his fine eyes, while his face grew even graver 
 than before. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said, with no bitterness in 
 his tones. "Remember this much, anyway" — 
 and his eyes shone on her with so much of 
 their old, kindly light that she could not help 
 marveling — "I'll always be there T 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 139 
 
 Evening came, and lights sprang up in the 
 new, yellow-boarded town hall. At nine 
 o'clock, Mrs. Baker made her appearance, os- 
 tensibly to borrow a brooch, but when she 
 found that Alva was dressed and ready, she 
 hurried away without the ornament. Her 
 house was full of ribbony Mormon girls fight- 
 ing for the mirror, she said, and the front par- 
 lor was a foot deep in violet talcum. 
 
 "Oh, yes,'' she added briefly over her shoul- 
 der. "There's something doing to-night among 
 the men, too, though I don't know just what it 
 is. We'll hear more about it in the morning." 
 
 Alva resumed her seat by the dining-room 
 lamp and took up her unread book again. She 
 had been there for nearly an hour, staring at 
 the blank walls of the tent and wondering what 
 mad impulse had driven her to accept a com- 
 paratively unknown escort. The hysteria of 
 the night and morning had given way to a re- 
 signed floating with the current, yet she could 
 not help pondering that twice-rejected advice 
 and the vague rumors that had come to Mrs. 
 Baker's ears. 
 
 But although her regret for her bargain 
 steadily grew, she had not long to puzzle over 
 
140 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 these things, for Duncan presented himself 
 promptly, and she saw that she would have to 
 
 go- 
 
 *Tf only he has been drinking, I can refuse," 
 she thought hopefully. But there was nothing 
 objectionable in Duncan's face or manner. 
 The only thing she noticed about him was a 
 certain quietness that contrasted oddly with his 
 good spirits of that morning. 
 
 As she looked at him in the full light of the 
 lamp, however, she began to realize how v€ry 
 little she actually knew about the man, and, ex- 
 cept for his deceptive smile, how thin-lipped and 
 hard-faced he was. She said something to 
 make his lips part and saw that his smile was 
 forced; she knew now that it had always been 
 that way, if she had only taken time to study 
 it. The conviction grew on her that some- 
 thing was very wrong with him to-night, and, 
 in an agony of regret for her rashness, she cast 
 about desperately for some reasonable excuse 
 that would allow escape. 
 
 Music started up in the hall next door while 
 she kept him waiting on various pretexts, and 
 she heard the grate of feet on the porch. 
 Again she studied him, and saw a hidden ten- 
 sion in his attitude and an obvious effort to 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 141 
 
 hear what was being said outside. He passed 
 his tongue across his Hps, as if they were dry, 
 and swallowed with a visible effort. 
 
 "Well," he said nervously. "Well? Shall 
 we go ?" 
 
 It seemed to Alva as if she were living and 
 acting in a dream. She could not guess what 
 the man before her had done, but she now knew 
 perfectly well that he had committed some 
 crime. And yet she felt as helpless as if she 
 were in the grip of some horrible nightmare. 
 While every instinct fought in favor of refusal 
 the ghastly shape of impending tragedy so filled 
 her mind that it numbed her into silence. As 
 they neared the door, the horror of her position 
 finally overcame everything else, and she 
 halted, with a blanched face. But other 
 couples behind them forced them on, and she 
 passed into the well-filled room and crossed as 
 quickly as possible to where Mrs. Baker, 
 fllanked by her Mormon friends, sat surrounded 
 by a dozen men. 
 
 No sooner had she gained a seat near the 
 protecting wing and collected herself, than she, 
 in turn, was surrounded, and, with the 
 strengthening influence of friendly faces buoy- 
 ing her up, she decided to feign illness and es- 
 
142 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 cape at the first opportunity. Duncan, she 
 saw, was hovering about on the outside of the 
 circle, but her sensibiHties, now grown tremen- 
 dously acute, interpreted every nervous half 
 laugh he gave, and read every uneasy look. 
 
 In spite of Mrs. Baker's presence, a chill of 
 fear gathered around her heart. She began to 
 be unable to look about her. Music, gayety, 
 laughter, polished floor, and hum of voices, all 
 became a ghastly travesty of enjoyment. For 
 all the set smile with which she made her 
 answers, her face grew pinched and white. 
 Lifting her misery-full eyes with an effort at 
 the sound of a voice close by, she felt herself 
 grow cold from head to foot. The night-hoist 
 engineer from the Cactus shaft — the black- 
 bearded man at the end of the table — was 
 speaking to her in the same significant tones 
 that he had used that morning. When she 
 caught the note of warning in his voice, she 
 knew that the end was not far oflf. 
 
 "Lady,'' said he, *T guess you ain't feeling 
 very peart to-night. You look like you'd bet- 
 ter be home. I'll take you, lady, if you want 
 to go." 
 
 The look of agony that she turned on him 
 was enough to let him read her instant con- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 143 
 
 sent, but before she could rise, the music 
 started up, and Duncan stood before her. 
 
 *'My dance," he said, with his thin smile. 
 "Not figuring to steal this lady away from me, 
 are you, Ryan?'' 
 
 The black-bearded man rose as Alva rose, 
 and moved away, with barely a glance at the 
 questioner. 
 
 *'No. I never worked at thieving much," he 
 said. "I'm 'most too tired out at night to have 
 two trades. I'll be waiting, lady — out by the 
 door. I'll reckon you'll be going soon." 
 
 It was on the tip of her tongue to cry out to 
 him to wait, but as she faltered, the black- 
 bearded man quickened his steps toward the 
 door, as if he saw something there, and in an- 
 other moment it was too late. They were 
 standing. The music was playing. Eyes were 
 watching. They must dance. 
 
 As they moved across the hall and turned 
 down the side in a waltz, Alva felt that every- 
 one's eyes were on them. She also saw that 
 the doorway was full of men, in some way a 
 different-looking group from the idlers who 
 generally hung around the entrance. As their 
 slow circling brought them nearer, she saw 
 Randall in the front row and behind him the 
 
144 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 set, watchful faces of the men whom she had 
 often seen with him before. Beside him stood 
 the forlorn, but picturesque, figure of Danny 
 the Bum, resurrected lately from some hiding 
 place, much the worse for wear. 
 
 Nearer and nearer the circling two came to 
 the group in the doorway, and more and more 
 Alva felt the force of their eyes. When they 
 came opposite, she saw Randall turn to the 
 crowd and shake his head. While she won- 
 dered what it all meant, she felt her partner's 
 arm slacken and saw Danny the Bum spring 
 out of the group with a shrill cry of alarm. 
 
 'That's him! There he is!" he shouted. 
 "The felluh wot held 'em up at the Point o' 
 Rocks!" 
 
 Instantly Alva felt herself swung ten feet 
 or more away across the slippery floor. 
 Whether the man pushed her or she sprang 
 away she never knew, but immediately she was 
 crouching against a bench by the wall. Look- 
 ing back, she saw a revolver flash out in Dun- 
 can's hand, as the men at the door broke for 
 him across the shining floor. 
 
 Randall was foremost, his face distorted in 
 an effort to reach the shrill-voiced Danny a 
 step ahead. Later, she remembered that he 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 145 
 
 cried out to the men behind him not to shoot. 
 
 In front of her and all around the hall, men 
 stopped dancing and threw back their coats 
 or dug frantically at their waistbands. But 
 Alva somehow knew that all would be too 
 late. The sinister thing in Duncan's hand had 
 been leveled too long — was pointed too 
 straight. Yet she also knew that the weapon 
 was not pointed at the shrunken figure of the 
 accuser, but at the man now half in front of 
 Danny, trying to thrust him ba,ck. Just before 
 the deafening roar of the revolver sounded, she 
 heard an ear-piercing sound. Afterward, she 
 learned that she had screamed. 
 
 There was no second shot. Only a rushing 
 wave of men that broke a little over a body, 
 and then rolled over the gunman and beat him 
 savagely to the floor. Panting and yelling, 
 they fought for holds on his arms and legs. 
 Most of all, they clutched at the angrily fight- 
 ing hand that waved the weapon dangerously 
 about until a heavy boot stamped down on it 
 with frightful force and crushed the revolver 
 out of its grasp. Then they disentangled 
 themselves, cursing fluently with relief, and left 
 two of their number sitting on the prisoner, 
 one of whom pulled a pair of handcufifs from 
 
146 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 his pocket and manacled the wrists that the 
 other held up. Then the man who had had 
 the handcuffs stood up and looked about him. 
 It was Randall. 
 
 "Get back, everybody," Alva heard him say. 
 "Clear the hall, boys. This will end the danc- 
 ing. You're all safe, ladies. We're sorry we 
 had to make such a muss." 
 
 He stooped over the smaller of the two men 
 on the floor and spoke to him gently. 
 
 "Everything's all right now, Danny," he 
 said, with a good-humored pat on the back. 
 "We're much obliged to you. You'd better get 
 up and dance." 
 
 But Danny did not look as if he had heard, 
 and Danny did not get up, even though he 
 might dance. Danny had "business to trans- 
 act." The time had come for the Head Book- 
 keeper to cast up Danny's accounts and strike 
 a final balance. And it was not Danny's little 
 book that carried the last and greatest credit, 
 nor any book in Magnet. 
 
 "He jumped in front of me!" Alva heard 
 Randall crying, as he straightened up. His 
 eyes swept the room until they found hers, and 
 then plunged into them, stark with regret, "I 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 147 
 
 was trying to hold him back, but he saw it com- 
 ing, and took it for himself!" 
 
 He spoke out his defense to her over the 
 heads of the crowd with as instinctive an ap- 
 peal for belief as a husband's voice would have 
 carried to his wife. It was as if she must 
 know at once exactly how it had happened. 
 
 For a moment his self-possession seemed to 
 leave him, but presently the wild look left his 
 face and his eyes grew calm again. When 
 they shifted from hers and the chain was 
 broken, Alva realized all that her rashness this 
 day had cost her. Sick at heart, she covered 
 her face with her hands and sank back against 
 the wall. 
 
 Feet were hurrying past her to the door in 
 the wake of the grim group surrounding the 
 prisoner, and she heard voices calling to her as 
 the women scurried by in frightened haste, but 
 all such sounds, as well as the hoarse shouts 
 ringing in the street, the rush of footsteps 
 along the sidewalks, and the exclamations of 
 the men as they turned over the body on the 
 floor, were lost in the wave of misery that 
 drowned her soul. After a long time, when 
 the silence had forced itself on her, she took 
 
148 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 her hands from her eyes and saw Mrs. Baker 
 sitting quietly beside her. 
 
 The older woman reached over and took an 
 unresisting hand in a firm grip. 
 
 ''Now, don't you go to feeling bad, Alva," 
 she said. "You couldn't help it. Nobody 
 could — not even Dick Randall, though he 
 tried mighty hard at the last minute. If 
 Danny hadn't made his break, they'd have 
 taken him when they wanted him and not be- 
 fore." 
 
 Alva's face seemed set in stone. With star- 
 ing, tearless eyes she looked straight before 
 her. 
 
 "All that is of no consequence whatever," 
 she said, in a dead voice. "I am disgracedT 
 
 The Westerner stared for a moment, then 
 frowned and gripped the limp hand tighter. - 
 
 "Alva," she said cuttingly, "what makes you 
 think you're so darn' much better than the rest 
 of us out here? If you're disgraced, then so 
 was I at Hackberry years ago, but I didn't lose 
 much sleep over it, because nobody would have 
 believed it. I advise you to get next to your- 
 self, Alva. This isn't the ballroom of the 
 Palace Hotel. This is a rough, hard place, 
 where we do the best we can for our fun and 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 149 
 
 get all out of life that's coming to us. Maybe 
 we get smutted up a little, but we know we did 
 it all for the best, and so it doesn't hurt us, 
 after all. 
 
 "But the thing that will hurt you is your 
 thinking you're so darned good that now you're 
 done for, just because you talked for a while 
 with someone who wasn't straight. My ad- 
 vice to you, Alva, is to get a good grip on your- 
 self and go home to bed. The worst way you 
 can put on airs around here is to circulate the 
 idea that you're disgraced." 
 
 In silent response, Alva gathered herself to- 
 gether and let the other woman lead her from 
 the hall. More than ever a mockery in this 
 hideous place, the cheap bunting draped around 
 the unpainted joists and flaring lamps seemed 
 a fitting index to the whole tawdry life, but for 
 the saving clause that someone had taken down 
 a section of the bright cheesecloth and laid it 
 over Danny's body. 
 
 Within the ballroom the blood spots were 
 bright on the shining floor, but outside, the 
 clean, white stars were gleaming, and the great 
 body of a night wind was pressing softly out 
 of the vague waste. Never in her life before 
 had air seemed so wildly sweet. She opened 
 
ISO HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 her mouth, like an exhausted runner, and drank 
 it down with long, quivering breaths. She felt 
 as if she had broken out of a foul, contaminat- 
 ing jail. The open space about her was like 
 a great pool of water into which she might 
 plunge and try to cleanse herself. 
 
 For a moment the two women stood close to- 
 gether, listening. Everywhere saloon doors 
 were fanning and men were running and shout- 
 ing through the warm darkness. A hundred 
 yards away, a crowd bulked vaguely in the open 
 street, but the murmur of only a single voice 
 came to their ears. Presently there was a slow 
 movement, and the dark mass of men, with 
 their prisoner, faded silently out of the street 
 and passed between the tents on to the open 
 hillside to the west. 
 
 ''I wonder what they're up to now?" the 
 Western woman muttered thoughtfully. 
 "There ain't any jail, you know." 
 
 'T know," Alva answered, while a pang went 
 through her at the thought of her foolish 
 threat against Danny the day before. 
 
 As the two women watched and whispered, 
 the crowd came to a halt. Someone in the 
 group lit a lantern. A man's figure showed 
 motionless among the others shifting around 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 151 
 
 the glow. Then a hand was laid on his shoul- 
 der, and he seemed to slide down to the 
 ground, sitting stiffly upright as if he were 
 leaning against something. 
 
 "They've handcuffed his hands behind him 
 around a post !" Mrs. Baker whispered under- 
 standingly. "Dick Randall's discovery post!" 
 
 A cry of horror rose to Alva's lips. 
 
 "In the graveyard?" she quavered, yet knew 
 well enough where it was. 
 
 "Why not?" the other woman responded 
 stonily. "Didn't he send Danny there ? He'll 
 be there himself to-morrow. Come, Alva. 
 We've had enough." 
 
 Back in her tent alone, Alva lit the swinging 
 lamp, only to put it out again immediately, and 
 throw herself, face downward, on her bed with- 
 out undressing. One after another the hor- 
 rible day's happenings trooped through her 
 mind like a motion picture reel that would never 
 stop unwinding until, at an hour long after 
 midnight, she gave up all hope of calming her- 
 self, and lifted her hot head from the pillow. 
 
 Some time before, she had acquired the 
 habit of raising the western wall of her tent so 
 that she could look up the hillside toward Don- 
 ald's grave when she woke in the early morn- 
 
152 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ing, and now, as she stared out, she saw the 
 tiny, yellow flame of a lantern flickering near 
 the top of the hill. 
 
 The camp had grown strangely still. The 
 tents were dark, and the only sound that came 
 to her ears was the mournful howl of a coyote 
 trotting over the plain. The moon dropped 
 down to the edge of the ragged sky line. Out- 
 lined against the bright disk she saw the mo- 
 tionless black figure of a man, sitting with his 
 back against a post. 
 
 Little by little Alva rose from her bed. She 
 was not conscious of forming any determina- 
 tion as she slipped under the canvas and stepped 
 out into the brush, or of arriving at her action 
 by any particular process of reasoning. On 
 the contrary, it was merely the old, grim resolve 
 that drove her — the never-forgotten main- 
 spring of purpose acting on the realization that 
 to-morrow the man huddled there on the hill- 
 side in hideous silhouette would be as dead as 
 Magnet and a rope could make him, and that, 
 with his passing, her principal source of infor- 
 mation would be gone beyond recall. 
 
 There was no more than this — no remem- 
 brance of Randall's warnings or weighing of 
 his motives — not even a recollection of that 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 153 
 
 crowded moment when his eyes had instinct- 
 ively sought hers and the man had cried out 
 his sorrow over Danny's sacrifice. Temporar- 
 ily at least, all these things were forgotten, 
 and the woman was walking silently but swiftly 
 up the hill through the brush with her eyes 
 fixed firmly on the figure and the light. Near- 
 ing the top of the hill, she turned off and 
 walked over to where two men were seated on 
 the ground, their revolvers lying between their 
 feet, the lantern behind them. If she had been 
 thinking of it, she would have known that they 
 had been conscious of her approach for some 
 time. Both the men rose as she came near, but 
 remained silent. 
 
 "I should like to speak to him, if there are 
 no objections," Alva said. 
 
 "We'll make it private for you, ma'am," they 
 said, and moved away. 
 
 Alva went directly to the man at the post. 
 It did not matter if he were asleep, because a 
 long time ago — years, it seemed — she had 
 known that she would wake him. But the man 
 handcuffed to the post was not asleep — and he 
 knew her. 
 
 ''Duncan," said Alva, "do you know why I 
 am in Magnet?" 
 
154 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 The man barely lifted his dulled eyes, but 
 she read his answer in a short movement of his 
 head. She also saw that he knew what the 
 morning would bring. With the end so plainly 
 in sight, he must surely speak the truth. 
 
 'I'm here to find the man who shot Donald 
 Jaffray. I think you know, and I want you to 
 tell me who it was." 
 
 The man made no reply for a time, but only 
 wet his dried lips with his tongue and stared 
 past her. When he spoke at last, it was with 
 a counter question. 
 
 **You were talking with a man on the street 
 to-day," he said, in a voice so dead that an icy 
 hand seemed to reach into her heart and close 
 around it. "He told you not to go to the dance 
 with me to-night. Am I right?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered. "But what has that 
 to do with you or me?" 
 
 The man raised his head and gave her one 
 full, searching look. Then, although she could 
 not see it, his eyes grew cold with the hate of a 
 dying snake that knows the heel that crushed it. 
 
 "I'm surprised you didn't take his warning," 
 he said. "But perhaps you know him like I 
 do, and knew he would be figuring to make it 
 look as if I'd killed young Jaffray, too. Dead 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 155 
 
 men tell no tales, they say — so Til tell 'em while 
 I'm still alive. If you want Don Jaffray's mur- 
 derer, you know where to find him!" 
 
 Alva said nothing. Her ears had heard and 
 her mind had recorded his words, but she was 
 conscious of neither exultation nor regret. 
 She had simply discovered what her instinct 
 had sent her to Magnet to discover long months 
 ago. In fact, now that part of it was over, 
 the matter was put away for the time in the 
 face of the more miserable present. 
 
 The silence lengthened. A puff of wind 
 came up, then died away. The coyote whined 
 for a second time across the waste. The moon 
 sank down till only a silver edge showed above 
 the black reef of the hill. The tents in the 
 town below seemed like balls of phosphorescent 
 thistledown floating on a silver-gray sea. In- 
 finite miles away the bulk of the mountains, 
 half seen, darkened the sky. Overhead, the 
 stars began to glitter whitely for the last time. 
 
 Perhaps it was no narrow cell in which the 
 man beside her was confined, and yet, to Alva, 
 his was a far more dreadful prison. Illimit- 
 able distance seemed to spread out on every 
 hand — long reaches down through the sage- 
 sweet air to the dry lakes and deserts, north, 
 
156 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 south, east, and west — aye, and up to those 
 crisp stars overhead — nothing but loneHness — 
 infinity. In the half hght of approaching 
 dawn, the hilltop became a solitary peak from 
 which the man looked out over the whole world 
 — the world he would have to give up when 
 they spoke to him in the morning. It was only 
 a little while, now. In an hour or two the sun 
 would come up, and then — 
 
 A sound of voices came to her. Someone 
 had come up through the brush, and was talk- 
 ing with the guards. She caught herself to- 
 gether with a shiver, looked, and saw the two 
 and a taller man behind them watching her; 
 then saw them turn away and fade into the 
 darkness. A sense of her curious position in 
 their eyes came to her, and she turned to hurry 
 away. But the man raised his voice at the 
 last moment. 
 
 "I'm all in,'' he said, with his chin sunk on 
 his breast and his mouth gone slack. "My 
 checks go back in the rack to-morrow for some 
 other fellow to play the rotten game with later 
 on. It's a funny thing — this life. I ain't 
 ever been what you'd call a 'good' man, I 
 reckon, but I never figured that I'd get this 
 deal. And here you come into my life — from 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 157 
 
 somewhere out there*' — and he nodded his head 
 at the dark mountains — "and you interfere 
 with my play and I get careless, and before I 
 know it — you — just a woman — a plain, ordi- 
 nary woman that I never saw before, and don't 
 care a snap of my finger about — ^you give me 
 the little push that sends me skyhooting down 
 the trail to hell." 
 
 He paused for a moment, staring out over 
 his wide, silent world; at the dark pools be- 
 tween the ranges where the valleys lay ; then up 
 at the crisp, white stars glittering down 
 through the millions of miles of loneliness. 
 
 ''It's getting cold," he said. "My mind is 
 cold. I guess that where I'm going will be a 
 terrible lonely place. Why don't they tell us 
 it ain't a fellow's body that gets hurt when he 
 settles up? It don't seem right to hide a fel- 
 low's bill till he goes to pay. I wonder if ever 
 a parson saw what I am seeing now !" 
 
 Alva could stand no more. 
 
 "Good-by!" she said. "Thank you for tell- 
 ing me what I wanted to know." 
 
 She put out her hand in farewell, then real- 
 ized the futility of it, and hurried away. 
 
 Behind her, the man handcuffed to the post 
 broke out in a jeering laugh. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE first thing Alva was conscious o£ 
 next morning was that she was wide 
 awake and standing in the middle of her tent. 
 She did not know what had roused her so sud- 
 enly, but as she stood there she felt a galvanic 
 movement go through the camp from end to 
 end and grow with the sound of hurrying feet 
 and slamming doors. Dressing hastily, she 
 slipped into the street. 
 
 From every tent and bunk-house men were 
 coming — hatless and half dressed, their hair 
 still matted over their eyes. All in a moment 
 the signal had gone through Magnet, and, as 
 Alva looked, the crowd around the Miners' 
 Hall grew to hundreds. Even the women 
 were astir, and Alva could see Mrs. Baker and 
 her Mormon charges standing in front of the 
 post office up the street. Near by, on the cor- 
 ner, the freckle-faced girl who slept in her 
 cashier's cage in Bindelmann's store made a 
 stiff half gesture at her, only to drop her hand 
 and clutch a green sweater jacket around her 
 
 158 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 159 
 
 as she stared, white-faced, at the running, 
 shouting men. 
 
 The group in front of the hall seemed com- 
 posed of two bodies ; an inner shell of men who 
 stood still, and a vast fringe of newcomers who 
 constantly circled around in an effort to find 
 some one a head shorter than themselves. 
 Finally all stood quiet while one man spoke. 
 Then those on the side nearest Alva turned and 
 began to walk toward her and the Bindelmann 
 girl, whom she had joined on the store steps. 
 They came directly on, the scattered, excited 
 van — the close-walking, inner shell of men 
 with the prisoner — the surging rabble along- 
 side. Among them Alva saw the two guards 
 of the night before and the black-bearded man, 
 and at the prisoner's shoulder one other whose 
 eyes looked full into hers and yet did not seem 
 to see her. As they came on, she could hear 
 the men around the prisoner talking among 
 themselves : 
 
 "Fifty feet of half-inch will do." 
 
 "Make it three-quarters.'' 
 
 "Stop here till he gets it." 
 
 "Hustle along, Dan." 
 
 Before Alva and the girl could shrink back 
 into the store, the crowd engulfed them. A 
 
i6o HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 man hurried into the store, taking out his 
 pocketknife as he went, and caUing out nerv- 
 ously for someone to wait on him. Pressed 
 close together, the two women stared into each 
 other's eyes and clutched hands. 
 
 "I can't do it," the girl whimpered. ''Let 
 him find it himself!" And soon, through the 
 silence, came the ''rap-rap" of hard new rope 
 on the floor as it was pulled hastily from the 
 reel. 
 
 Hardly six feet away from her, the prisoner 
 stood motionless in the center of a sibilant, con- 
 stantly moving crowd, that seemed all open 
 mouths and fascinated, staring eyes. Alva 
 stared with the others for a morbid moment, 
 then tore her eyes away and fastened them on 
 the man beside the prisoner. 
 
 Two guilty men. One in handcuffs and one 
 as free as air. One to go and one to stay. 
 And he who had done the greater wrong was 
 to be the other's executioner. Alva felt that 
 there must be others in that encircling crowd 
 who knew what she knew, and she wondered if 
 they saw the hideous irony of it all. For one 
 agonizing moment she felt an insane impulse 
 to throw restraint to the winds and cry out at 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST i6i 
 
 him — then Randall's gaze shifted to hers, and 
 she lost courage. 
 
 His face was not set or even grim. Instead, 
 It held a sanity that contrasted so sharply with 
 her own suffocating emotions that she felt her- 
 self pulled down to earth again. In some in- 
 explicable way, the thing about to take place 
 immediately became a necessity, even though 
 he was in control — even though he was cleverly 
 making justice serve his own ends. Their 
 eyes met once more — his cool and level, hers 
 hot with resentment — and she thought she 
 read in his face a realization of his great good 
 fortune. Then the man with the rope came 
 out of the store, and the crowd moved on. 
 
 As the mob streamed away, the man with 
 the rope hurried ahead to a telegraph pole up 
 the street, a loose end of the yellow hemp 
 writhing like a bright serpent through the dust 
 of the road. Here he carefully estimated the 
 distance to the crossbar and tossed the rope 
 over the arm with a cow-puncher's sure aim. 
 Unable to bear any more, Alva put her arm 
 around the Bindelmann girFs shoulder and led 
 her inside the store. 
 
 Five minutes later she interrupted the girFs 
 
i62 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 soft moaning into a pink-and-green comforter 
 that lay on the counter : 
 
 '^The men are coming back. I think it's 
 over/' 
 
 ''Don't leave me," implored the girl from the 
 depths of the comforter. ''Did you see the 
 awful look on his face when they took him 
 away ? I won't sleep for a week. Isn't this a 
 simply terrible place!" 
 
 "It's no place for you, dear," Alva answered. 
 "Make your father send you away." 
 
 "I guess he'll have to. I ain't very used to 
 hangings," the girl replied. 
 
 When Alva went out on the street again, 
 she found it dotted everywhere with men in 
 twos and threes, although a good-sized group 
 still stood at the foot of the pole. Near her, 
 Randall and two others stood with their backs 
 turned on the scene. 
 
 As Alva hesitated, wondering if he would 
 have the hardihood to speak to her as he had 
 done the day before, her attention was drawn 
 to a man who hurried out of a tent with a 
 square black box under his arm. This man 
 ran across the street and spoke to the group 
 around the pole. To Alva's surprise, she saw 
 that the rope had not yet been taken down, and, 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 163 
 
 as she looked, several men came out of the cir- 
 cle with an end in their hands and began to 
 pull. While she wondered what it all meant, 
 the man from the tent stepped back a few feet 
 into the road and leveled his box at something 
 on the end of the rope, which was rising, 
 straight and stiff, out of the center of the 
 crowd. A cry of horror leaped from her lips. 
 They were drawing the dead man up again to 
 take his photograph! 
 
 No sooner had she cried out, than she felt 
 the rush of several men past her — Randall in 
 front, his eyes blazing, his face convulsed with 
 anger. Another moment, and the camera was 
 beaten out of the photographer's hands, and 
 the three had charged headlong into the men 
 at the end of the rope. 
 
 As if by magic, the saloons and tents emptied 
 again into the street. The mob took form 
 once more, no longer wordless and grim, but 
 this time an angry, swearing rabble, that 
 jostled and kicked and struck. A roar of 
 voices went up and did not subside even when 
 the three had cut their way savagely into the 
 crowd and taken possession of the body. Then 
 Randall's voice rang out high above the bel- 
 lowing profanity. 
 
i64 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "Go on! Keep right ahead!" he roared, 
 shaking his fist in their faces. ''Disgrace the 
 camp just as far as you can! Make us the 
 mark for every newspaper in the whole coun- 
 try ! Even then you won't be playing as mean 
 a trick as you were playing on this fellow 
 here!" 
 
 A growl and a curse answered him. A fist 
 shot out and brushed his cheek. Alva, several 
 yards away, could hear the clean smack of 
 Randall's blow as he planted his counter 
 squarely in the other's face. There was a 
 surging to and fro inside the crowd for a mo- 
 ment — then suddenly the attacker popped into 
 view like a pea shelled out of a pod, and 
 sprawled headlong on the ground. Scram- 
 bling to his feet, he made a belligerent show 
 of taking off his coat to plunge in again. But 
 the ridiculous figure he cut appealed to their 
 sense of humor, and a gale of laughter was his 
 only answer. 
 
 The crowd began to scatter for a second 
 time, and Alva turned away toward her tent. 
 It was the first time she had seen this man, or 
 any man, so furiously angry, and, in spite of 
 everything, she thrilled at the thought of how 
 forcefully he had backed up his rebuke. As 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 165 
 
 she passed down the street with pale, thought- 
 ful face, she wondered what manner of man 
 was this who would first hang a criminal and 
 then imperil his own life to save the body from 
 insult. 
 
 It was only nine o'clock when the last break- 
 fast dish had been dried and relaid on the 
 table, and Alva became conscious that she had 
 been working with feverish rapidity. In spite 
 of her share in the tragedy, her presence in 
 the dining-room had not brought forth a word 
 of either criticism or sympathy. Even the 
 black-bearded man had failed to do more than 
 recognize her, and then proceed with his silent 
 meal. Evidently Mrs. Baker had been right. 
 
 But in spite of the calm that had come over 
 the camp, something still seemed impending, 
 or else it was the ceaseless throbbing of her 
 tortured nerves. Only nine o'clock, yet it 
 seemed as if a whole year's activities had been 
 crowded into the past twelve hours. Alva's 
 head began to ache, and she sank down in a 
 chair near the kitchen door. 
 
 After a time she heard a step. Raising her 
 head with an effort, she saw the red-haired 
 woman known as ''Tiger Lil" regarding her 
 thoughtfully. 
 
i66 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 "You look all in/' the woman said. 
 
 Alva nodded, and tried to smile. Somehow, 
 since last night the gulf between them seemed 
 a fraction less great. 
 
 The woman questioned her mutely, then 
 seated herself on the doorstep. She, too, 
 seemed very tired, but Alva read the story 
 of heavy drinking in her constantly twitching 
 movements and bloodshot eyes. 
 
 The woman leaned her chin on her hand 
 and stared out over the desert, glittering in 
 the heat. 
 
 *T'm thinking about Danny," she said. "It's 
 about time they did something for him." 
 
 Alva wondered for a moment, then sat up 
 in her chair. 
 
 "Isn't he buried yet ?" she asked, in a shocked 
 voice. 
 
 "He is not/' was the answer. "And, what's 
 more, I don't know who's going to do it, either. 
 The Committee is having a meeting, and none 
 of the other men will bother about him, they 
 say. Probably they'll let it go till they get 
 good and ready — then dump him in." 
 
 Alva paled. 
 
 "He was pretty good to me," went on the 
 woman. "He did lots of odd jobs for me — 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 167 
 
 just why I don't know. He didn't have many 
 friends while he was here, the poor, old bum, 
 and now it don't look like he had any. Nor 
 even — nor even a decent suit of clothes for the 
 grave." She stared moodily out over the heat- 
 hazed plain, and her brows came together in 
 a sullen frown. "He's going to lie there a 
 long time," she said heavily. "It isn't right." 
 
 Alva's dark eyes grew darker and larger. 
 She stood up. "Let us two go and make him 
 ready for burial," she said. 
 
 And so, in a coat room in the rear of the 
 Miners' Hall, where the body had lain all night 
 covered over with a sheet of tar paper, the 
 woman from the East and the woman from 
 Nowhere labored together in that Christian 
 service which woman's compassion has im- 
 pelled her to perform since the dawn of civili- 
 zation — and before it. 
 
 "Danny never was what you'd call a 'swell 
 dresser,' " the red-haired woman murmured, 
 with a wry face, as she held up a tattered vest. 
 "This would have been good for just about one 
 da}'' more." 
 
 A battered notebook tumbled from a pocket 
 to the floor. The woman took it up and 
 scanned its pages curiously. After a time she 
 
i68 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 raised her eyes, without lifting her head, and 
 looked stealthily across the body at Alva. 
 When she felt sure that her action had not 
 been noticed, she slipped the notebook into her 
 dress and dropped her eyes to the tattered vest 
 again. And their swift drooping hid the light 
 of a great secret discovered. 
 
 '*ril see if I can beg some clothes from the 
 saloons," she said presently. 'Til speak to 
 Andy, too, and have him make a coffin, and 
 send word to Randall about digging a grave." 
 Then the knowledge of what the notebook in- 
 side her waist contained led her to try a sig- 
 nificant remark: ''Randall ought to be good 
 at graves by this time. They say he's helped 
 make people ready for 'em before." 
 
 A sudden flash lighted up Alva's face. The 
 red-haired woman thought it was anger, and 
 turned away before anything could be said, a 
 faint smile curling her already curled lips. 
 
 Later in the morning, Andy, the carpenter, 
 grave- faced for once, came and took his meas- 
 urements and departed again, after expressing 
 himself vividly as to the Committee's laxity, 
 and after a time the red-haired woman re- 
 turned, bringing a suit of clothes and a clean 
 shirt. During the remainder of their task. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 169 
 
 Alva felt more than ever depressed, for the 
 securing of Danny's clothes had been conducted 
 under alcoholic stimulus. 
 
 "FuneraFs at four o'clock/' the woman said 
 thickly when they parted. 'They're going to 
 send a couple of miners to dig a grave, but 
 we'll have to get Andy's wagon ourselves, I 
 guess. But we'll bury him good and proper, 
 won't we, sis ?" 
 
 "We'll do our best," Alva answered wearily; 
 and then, with a cry of despair : **I wonder if 
 there's another place in all the world like this !" 
 
 Shortly before the funeral, Mrs. Baker, who 
 had bundled her Mormon friends off on the 
 afternoon stage, came and reproached her. 
 
 "You're certainly terribly one-ideaed now- 
 adays, Alva," she said. "You don't seem to 
 look around for anything any more. You just 
 plunge right ahead as if something was chasing 
 you. People don't ever have to do these things 
 alone. Why didn't you let me help?" 
 
 "I wasn't alone," Alva answered, and the 
 soft light in her eyes showed a saddened under- 
 standing and a new toleration. "Tiger Lil was 
 the one who thought of it. I was only her 
 helper, Amelia." 
 
 Four o'clock came, and the wagon from the 
 
I70 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 lumber yard pulled up at the back door of the 
 hall. The red-haired woman looked down 
 from her seat on the box beside the silent Andy. 
 
 "They're coming now to load him in, and 
 some are coming to the burying, too. I roasted 
 'em to a finish down at the Green Front and 
 the Red Onion," she added exultantly. "I 
 guess they know now how we women feel about 
 a decent burial. Has anybody got a Bible, or 
 anything?" 
 
 Alva looked hopefully at Mrs. Baker. 
 
 "Well, now, I kinda think I have," that lady 
 murmured thoughtfully. "I believe I saw 
 something religious sticking around in the office 
 only yesterday. You folks hustle along and 
 ril run home and look. But don't you go 
 to burying too fast." 
 
 With the rough pine box lifted into the 
 wagon, Alva and the red-haired woman walked 
 up the hill together toward the graveyard. 
 Some distance in their rear a dozen men fol- 
 lowed in casual fashion through the sagebrush, 
 as if they would finally arrive at the funeral 
 quite by accident. 
 
 The other woman looked back several times 
 as they went on, and, when she spoke, Alva 
 seemed to know what would be said. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 171 
 
 ''Randall will be there, anyhow," the woman 
 remarked, in pleased tones. "He promised 
 he'd come, and that means he will. He's com- 
 ing off shift now — I can see him on the trail. 
 I hope there's singing, don't you?" she added 
 wistfully. "Anyway, just one song wouldn't 
 hurt." 
 
 As they neared the cemetery, they heard the 
 sound of hammer on steel, and saw two miners 
 at work. 
 
 "Better not come much closeter with that 
 young mare of yours, Andy," they called. 
 
 "What's the grief?" asked Andy, undis- 
 turbed, and set his brake. 
 
 "We've struck some of this d d hardpan 
 
 about two foot down, that's what's the matter. 
 Danny won't have any more grave than a jack- 
 rabbit if we don't loosen her up with a little 
 black powder. Hang on to your horse, Andy. 
 Bill will be spitting his fuse soon." 
 
 As they waited, waist-deep in the brush, the 
 men behind came up and stood in an apprecia- 
 tive semicircle, seizing the opportunity to roll 
 a cigarette and criticise the miners' judgment 
 with gentle humor. Overhead, the sun blazed 
 like the mouth of a furnace. Around them, 
 the fine desert dust rose up in a sage-em- 
 
172 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 bittered cloud that seemed both to choke 
 and cut. 
 
 One of the miners sat half in the grave, hold- 
 ing a drill on which the other swung down with 
 a practiced hand. Blow after blow came down 
 in machine-like rotation until Alva felt like 
 throwing up her hands and shrieking. A mo- 
 ment to load the shallow hole and light the fuse, 
 and the two* men came back, not without caustic 
 remarks as to the hardness of the ground. 
 
 Boom! A gentle rain of dirt fell around — 
 Andy's mare danced — the men walked forward 
 and critically inspected the hole — the women 
 followed, and the burial began. 
 
 While the coffin was being lowered into the 
 grave, Alva's eyes sought those around her. 
 At the end farthest from her, Randall stood, 
 hat in hand and silent. He looked grim and 
 very tired. H his eyes were on her at any time, 
 she did not notice it, for he seemed to be only 
 staring down at the yellow box. If he were 
 thinking of Danny, she thought, he must be 
 realizing that in his time of peril he had found, 
 as one always finds, the least expected friend. 
 
 They looked around at one another — miners, 
 gamblers, vagrants, clerks from the stores, the 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 173 
 
 three women — and there was a question in their 
 eyes. Then Mrs. Baker came to the front. 
 
 ''We ought to say something about this poor 
 fellow, I reckon," she said, in a faintly quaver- 
 ing voice, ''and, being it's Sunday, anyway, Td 
 like to read this yere Sunday-school leaflet that 
 I located up to the shack. But I dunno. It's 
 all about the children of Israel adventuring 
 round in a desert like this one here, where it 
 was awful hot and dry and sandy ; and because 
 they grumbled some, God sent a lot of serpents 
 to bite 'em. Probably that's meant paregori- 
 cally, and shouldn't be took too much in earn- 
 est, because we know very well that God 
 wouldn't do any such mean trick nowadays. 
 But it all goes to show that we ain't the only 
 ones playing in hard luck in deserts, and it 
 don't do for even a fellow like Danny to grum- 
 ble. I don't say we'd get snakes set onto us if 
 we did, but I guess Danny saw quite a few in 
 his time, and if he was here, he'd tell us to be 
 more careful. That's all. I'd read the leaflet 
 through, only we couldn't answer the questions 
 on the back, and it ain't the second Sunday 
 after Epiphany, anyhow." 
 
 When Mrs. Baker had ended, much to her 
 
174 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 relief and Alva's, Randall seemed to rouse him- 
 self from his brown study. The man's eyes 
 grew strong and clear, and seemed to take in 
 the whole group. 
 
 ''It isn't up to any of us to preach a sermon," 
 he said, "but I guess most of us believe in God 
 and the square deal, and will agree that it's 
 good for us to come here and do the right thing 
 when a man is passing out. 
 
 "As everybody knows, this man Danny was 
 pretty unfortunate. He had a bad appetite and 
 a poor sort of a body to justify any kind of an 
 appetite, and a weak-kneed mind to control 
 both of them. Just to make things worse, he 
 hadn't any friends. Probably a man like that 
 looks to be in a bad way. 
 
 "But a man often has friends scattered 
 around that he hasn't been counting on. This 
 man was my friend, although I didn't know it 
 at the time. It makes me wish mighty hard 
 that I'd been a better friend to him, 
 
 "Now, as I said, Danny wasn't what we'd 
 call an awful lot as we figure it, out here, but 
 still there was something about him that 
 brought us all out here to say 'good-by,' and 
 that is what is going to do us good. If Danny 
 didn't have any friends yesterday and yet has 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 175 
 
 all these to-day, we can all be mighty sure that 
 there's a chance for all of us, no matter who 
 we are, or how mean and yellow we've seemed 
 to others. We've always got a Friend." 
 
 The red-haired woman's hand tightened con- 
 vulsively on Alva's. 
 
 "He's right! He's right!" she whispered, 
 while her eyes stared out at what Alva hoped 
 was the truth at last. ^'Everybody's got a 
 chance — if they'll only take it. 0-h-h-h! I 
 want to singT 
 
 ''SingT Alva said to Mrs. Baker. 
 
 As if she were some kind of a mechanical 
 doll that responded to the touch, Mrs. Baker's 
 lips parted, and the first words of a hymn that 
 all civilization knows came forth in a throaty 
 tremolo. By the time the second line was 
 reached, Alva was singing with her, while a 
 faint accompanying murmur began behind 
 them. But Alva soon found her own voice 
 lowering, while she listened to a clearer, 
 stronger voice beside her. 
 
 From Nome to the Needles and from Grass 
 Valley to Cripple Creek there is a voice that 
 rises above the uproar of the saloon both by 
 day and by night — one sound that seems for- 
 ever ringing out above the ceaseless roll of the 
 
176 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 roulette ball and the bellowing at the bar. 
 Though other sounds may come to deaden it — 
 laughter, the gride of boots, the muttered be- 
 ginnings of a quarrel, a curse, a blow, a fall — 
 yet before the roar of the boom-camp night 
 rolls up again, there always comes the sound 
 of a woman singing, and the wild strain mocks 
 at life and death as well. 
 
 But the voice beside Alva took only a note 
 or two before it shook itself free from the 
 twang of the halls and gushed forth in uncon- 
 taminated beauty. Higher and higher it 
 soared, like a free-winged bird in flight, until 
 the others grew silent and only one voice was 
 left to sing Danny's funeral hymn. And as 
 the wonderful sounds came forth from the 
 woman's throat, Alva followed her eyes and 
 saw why she had wanted to sing. Once more 
 the verse began, and this time with a strain so 
 poignant that the man's heavy eyelids rose, 
 and she saw that he, also, knew. 
 
 Alva felt a sharp pang go through her. In 
 spite of their surroundings her eyes were in- 
 stantly riveted on the two, searching, question- 
 ing, testing. But even her oversuspicious eyes 
 could read nothing in the man's face except a 
 sort of shamed understanding. Then his look 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 177 
 
 shifted to Alva, and he reddened, for he was 
 seeing her for the first time. 
 
 The voice beside her quavered and faltered. 
 Little by little the sweetness died out of its 
 tones. Volume and clearness were there, but 
 that was all. But the woman still sang on, for 
 the blessed knowledge she had gained to-day 
 would be hers always. There would be a 
 chance for every one, some day. 
 
 There was a silence, followed by the rattle 
 of earth on the box, and then the group broke 
 up, spreading out in various directions toward 
 the town. The red-haired woman walked 
 among the first, head down and thoughtful. 
 Alva made haste to overtake her, but soon saw 
 that several men were following, and so drew 
 back. For a time it seemed as if something in 
 the red-haired woman's manner held them off. 
 Then she threw back her head with a wild laugh 
 and the men took heart. When Alva raised 
 her eyes again from the ground, Randall was 
 walking beside her. 
 
 In all the days since Alva Leigh had first de- 
 termined to discover Donald Jaffray's mur- 
 derer, she had never felt so lacking in power 
 of judgment. One after another the events of 
 the past twenty-four hours flashed through her 
 
178 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 mind, and yet, when all had passed, she found 
 herself looking silently, helplessly up into his 
 eyes, and wondering if she would ever know the 
 truth. 
 
 The man was very grave. Alva knew that 
 he was about to speak to her about himself. 
 The tightened look around his lips told her that 
 a definite understanding was not far off. 
 
 ''I want to tell you that it was mighty fine 
 of you to look after Danny," he said. "But 
 I've always known that you would do that sort 
 of thing." 
 
 ''How did you know it?" she asked dispas- 
 sionately. 
 
 ''Because you're that kind of a woman," he 
 answered simply. ''You're a woman with 
 strong likes and hates. You're a woman with 
 a foundation. When a thing is right for you 
 to do, you do it, no matter how much it hurts. 
 Of course, you might hurt other people while 
 you were doing it, but because you are that kind 
 of a woman, you'd go just as far the other way 
 to help them as soon as you found that you 
 were wrong. You are a woman whose mind 
 deals in big things first, and you'd go through 
 hell fire to do them." 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 179 
 
 "You are wonderfully clear-sighted/' she 
 said, with cold irony. ''Suppose we drop the 
 subject/' 
 
 ''Yes. We'll drop it now/' he answered. 
 "Because I've something to say to you." 
 
 Alva stopped short at the door of her tent 
 and faced him squarely. Was he going to be 
 so utterly foolish as to ask her to marry him ? 
 
 ''We've found the Gun Sight Mine!" he said. 
 'Tm pulling out in the morning T 
 
 Alva's face fell. She stepped back, with a 
 gasp. 
 
 "In the morning r she repeated. 
 
 "As early as I can. There are some things 
 here that I must clear up first. To-morrow 
 noon ni be at Furnace Creek. Probably I'll 
 be halfway across the Valley by evening." 
 
 He waited a moment longer, for he saw that 
 she was upset — then came close to her and took 
 her hand in his, although he did not raise it 
 from her side. 
 
 "Alva," he said gently, "the time has come, 
 now. You're the woman I want. I must go 
 away to-morrow, and it may be weeks or 
 months before I'm back, and so I want you to 
 know that you're the only woman that I've ever 
 
i8o HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 wanted as soon as I saw her — and before that. 
 You're the woman who can have every bit of 
 me from now until I die. 
 
 **IVe tried hard to keep from teUing you, be- 
 cause I wanted to wait until I made my big 
 stake, but I couldn't stand it. And I guess the 
 love I have for you isn't such a puny thing but 
 what it will bear a little talking about. 
 
 "We aren't boy and girl, you and I. Folks 
 have said at times that I seemed like I was full 
 grown, but there never has been any doubt 
 about you. You are a real woman — a big, 
 strong, lovable woman, without any foolish- 
 ness, and if you'll let me come into your life, 
 I'll promise not to make it any smaller than I 
 can help. I've known just exactly what you 
 were like ever since — " 
 
 "Since when ?" she asked, without withdraw- 
 ing her hand or raising her eyes. 
 
 "Since I first saw your face," he answered, 
 with a quiver in his voice. "Do you remember 
 the night when I found you on the desert ?" 
 
 She moved her head in silent assent, and still 
 did not take her hand away. 
 
 "I saw then that my work was cut out for 
 me," he said. "But I was glad of it. For 
 you're enough to make a man work harder than 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST i8i 
 
 he ever worked before — and enough to keep 
 him straighter/' 
 
 *'Yes/' she said, with a colorless intonation. 
 
 "Yes, Alva, that is so," he responded, with a 
 sharp breath, for he saw that his work was still 
 laid out for him. "And I have done it. 
 But I'm not wanting to talk to you about my- 
 self. All I want to tell you is what I hope to 
 do with my life for you, and why Tm going to 
 do it. 
 
 "I'm wanting to give you everything I can 
 get. I want you to go along in life with me 
 and grow so fast and so fine that no one can 
 touch you. You've got it in you to be a big, 
 fine woman. You're that now — in Magnet — 
 but I'm talking about anywhere in the world 
 that we might ever go. I'd love you, anyway, 
 as much as a woman could be loved, I reckon, 
 but I'll be loving you even more, then. It isn't 
 going to take anything more than happiness to 
 make you the finest woman in all outdoors — 
 and if you'll love me for thinking so, and work- 
 ing all the time to make you more so, that will 
 be all I'll want.'^ 
 
 He paused for a moment, and then spoke 
 even more gently and humbly than before : 
 
 "Have you anything to say to me, Alva?" 
 
i82 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 Gradually the woman drew away and gath- 
 ered herself together. There are times in life 
 when the innumerable things that do not matter 
 fall away like a cast-off garment, and only the 
 essentials remain. This was one of those in- 
 frequent moments, and the weight of that 
 knowledge lay heavy and forceful in the 
 woman's somber eyes. Most of all, it affected 
 her voice, toning it down to a deep note that 
 told him, with her first words, that his fate 
 would be decided for all time then and there. 
 
 Yet there was one thing that gave him hope, 
 even if his case should, seemingly, be lost. She 
 was too somber. The moment had become too 
 gravid with fate. There was something wrong 
 — as he had known before. 
 
 She took a full breath and faced him. 
 
 ''Mr. Randall,'' she said steadily, "you are 
 asking me to do something that is absolutely 
 impossible. I know that you mean all you say, 
 and so I tell you, with the same frankness, that 
 I cannot share your feelings. 
 
 "Apart from everything else, my reason is 
 that I can't understand you. Either you are a 
 good man, or a very wicked one. If I were 
 sure which you were, I'd tell you so immedi- 
 ately. Since I've come to Magnet, you've done 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 183 
 
 a great many kind things for me — things that 
 only a fine, strong, splendid man would do — 
 as you did them. On the other hand, you have, 
 apparently, done other things in your life that 
 even a devil wouldn't do/' 
 
 "A devil!" he murmured, astounded. The 
 look he shot at her was almost one of fright. 
 
 'Terhaps there are reasons why I should 
 want to know precisely what you are, and per- 
 haps, after all, it makes no difference. You 
 say you are going away in the morning. This 
 much I will tell you, then: You will not find 
 me here when you return. 
 
 **YouVe come into my life just as I would 
 have the man I might love come into it — fear- 
 less, strong, and tender. You go out of my 
 life just as fearless and strong, because that 
 much I see in you ; but as far as the rest of you 
 IS concerned, you are a mystery. 
 
 "I remember that first night on the desert as 
 well as you do. I knew then that you'd either 
 be my friend or someone whom I would never 
 want to see again. If I only knew which one 
 it would finally prove to be — if proof there is" 
 — and her eyes suddenly blazed into his — "you 
 may rest assured that I would tell you." 
 
 "I know that," he answered calmly, though 
 
i84 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 a little pale. 'That's why I tell you that I love 
 you — because you're that kind. I'm glad you 
 think I've helped you a little. You've helped 
 me a great deal more than that. But I can't 
 follow you when you say that it is I, perhaps, 
 that has hurt you. Furthermore, Fm not going 
 to ask you what it is you think, I tell you 
 again that I love you, and you must take me or 
 leave me on what I am. I may have a defense, 
 and I may not — it makes no difference. You'll 
 not know it from me!" 
 
 Alva never took her eyes off his. 
 
 "You take a high ground," she said haugh- 
 tily. "Also, you presuppose that I love you. 
 You're wrong. I care nothing for you. I care 
 only for one thing." 
 
 "And I," he answered. "My self-respect." 
 
 Alva's eyes wavered. 
 
 "Why are we talking?" she asked wearily. 
 "What can you gain ?" 
 
 "Your remembrance of what I've said," he 
 answered very gently. "Because these beliefs 
 of yours about me will pass away. When that 
 day comes, I want my love for you to be stand- 
 ing there, waiting. I'll have to stick it out till 
 then, I guess — ^but it will be worth while. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 185 
 
 "ril be going in the morning before you're 
 up. It may be a long time before I see you 
 again — ^between where I have to go and where 
 you can go — but that doesn't worry me much. 
 No matter where you go from here, Til find 
 you." 
 
 "You will not," she stated, as cold as a stone. 
 
 "I will/' came back the answer. ''Because 
 you will help me do it" 
 
 Alva felt a suffocation rising in her throat. 
 The irresistible forcefulness of his tones beat 
 on her mind, and robbed her of her power to 
 think. She wished, frantically, that he would 
 go away, or cease talking, or that she could stop 
 the endless whirling of her mind, or crush him 
 with some unanswerable retort. But none of 
 these things happened, and she felt her grip on 
 herself swiftly loosening. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of her weakness, a re- 
 viving thought came to her. 
 
 "When do you go?" she asked hurriedly, and 
 resolved to bring things to a head that very 
 night. If there were time enough, luck might 
 be with her yet. 
 
 His hand strayed toward his watch. He 
 took it from his pocket and held it, unopened. 
 
i86 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 in his hand, while his lips moved in a silent cal- 
 culation as to what he must do before the hour 
 of his departure. 
 
 "IVe got to clean up some business at the 
 Local office, and get my stuff together. That 
 will make it about three in the morning. Pack- 
 ing the burros and all that will take an hour 
 more. Probably I'll pull out about sun-up." 
 
 He turned, at a faint breath-catching sound, 
 and saw her grown ghastly white. Her eyes 
 were fixed on the heavy-cased gold watch in 
 his hand, and she was swaying to and fro, her 
 throat choked with unintelligible attempts to 
 speak. Then she fainted dead away in his 
 arms. 
 
 It was a moment or two before the man real- 
 ized what had happened, and for a little while 
 he held her clutched in his arms, frightened by 
 the silent, white face crushed against his breast. 
 To anyone passing at the time, it would 
 have seemed the perfect moment of love's con- 
 fession. 
 
 And, as it happened, someone did see them 
 and misread them in that very way, and stood 
 there in the sagebrush at the corner of the tent 
 with her washed-out blue eyes dark with hate. 
 Then, having seen at last what her growing 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 187 
 
 despair had told her would surely come to pass, 
 the red-haired woman reeled away with a bale- 
 ful face to the hell from which she had come. 
 
 When Alva came to her senses, she was on 
 her bed in her tent, with Mrs. Baker's anxious 
 face bending over her. 
 
 "It's all right now, Alvie, dear," the woman 
 was saying. "Just you lie quiet and pull your- 
 self together. You fainted, that's all," she 
 went on, in response to the query in Alva's 
 eyes. "Dick Randall brought you in here and 
 sent for me. He was the scaredest white man 
 I ever saw." 
 
 Alva lay still, striving to collect her thoughts. 
 Why had she fainted ? She knew she had been 
 frightfully tired and nervous, but that condi- 
 tion alone could never account for such a sud- 
 den collapse. As if in corroboration, her grop- 
 ings encountered the vague bulk of a remem- 
 brance which, she felt, must contain the real 
 reason — if she could only make it take form. 
 
 As the older woman sat down on the edge 
 of the bed and began to stroke her hand, Alva 
 suddenly turned her face down in the pillow 
 with a moan. She had remembered. The 
 watch she had seen in his hand! The mono- 
 
i88 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 grammed watch she had given Donald years 
 before ! 
 
 *What is the matter, dearie?'' the other 
 woman cried, appalled. 'Tell me your trouble, 
 Alva. YouVe been carrying this thing that 
 bothers you too long!" She hesitated, then 
 leaned over the face hidden deep in the pillow. 
 "I know he's going far away," she whispered 
 kindly. ''Don't be afraid to tell me how you 
 feel. Maybe I can set it right. Men are such 
 blistering fools !" 
 
 Alva stiffened all through her body. Then, 
 as her disgust served to help her collect herself, 
 she raised her head and sat up, a look of utter 
 finality on her face. 
 
 "Amelia," she said carefully, for even that 
 faithful friend must never know her secret, "if 
 you have any idea that there is anything be- 
 tween that man and myself, I ask you to put 
 it out of your mind. When I came to this 
 place, it was not in search of a business in 
 which to make money or even to look for a hus- 
 band. You've never asked me why I came, 
 and I'm glad you didn't, because I like you too 
 well to tell you an untruth. As things are now, 
 it's possible that I may have to go away from 
 Magnet just as I came — without saying why. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 189 
 
 But I want you to remember all your life that 
 there is someone who thanks you from the 
 bottom of her heart for all that you did for 
 her, without asking the questions that you 
 might have asked." 
 
 'Why — I never did anything, Alvie," the 
 other wailed. *'A11 I wanted was to see you 
 settle down right with a good man for a hus- 
 band. And I kinda thought, you know — " 
 
 'Tlease don't, Amelia. It won't help things 
 one bit. I shall never marry anyone." 
 
 "But you meant to, once, didn't you?" per- 
 sisted Mrs. Baker, with gentle objection. ''I 
 don't see how you knew about Magnet if you 
 didn't know some man out here. And if the 
 man wrote you letters back East, why, then, 
 you must have been thinking of him that way." 
 
 Alva stared. How did Mrs. Baker know 
 that anyone had written letters to her from 
 Magnet? 
 
 ''You say I've done a lot for you, dearie," 
 the older woman went on, in a voice that trem- 
 bled on the verge of tears, "but I dunno, after 
 all. Mebbe I've mullixed things up worse than 
 ever I thought. There ain't a whole lot for 
 a woman to do out here, and when you came, I 
 hoped you'd let me have a little private excite- 
 
I90 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ment, marrying you off to some nice man." 
 
 The woman's eyes fell before Alva's puzzled 
 look, and her hand picked at the bedclothes. 
 Her face took on a strange abjectness. 
 
 "I shouldn't have did it, I know — but I did 
 want to see you marry Randall, and so a while 
 back I played a mean trick on you. Maybe it 
 was worse than mean — I never stopped to 
 think. But you're so terrible in earnest about 
 everything that I can see now that perhaps — 
 perhaps I made an awful mistake." 
 
 The woman broke off and began to whimper. 
 
 "I did something pretty bad, I guess. I 
 could go right smack into jail for it, Baker 
 says — only — I've still got the letter T 
 
 'What letter?" cried Alva. 
 
 "A letter a man wrote you long ago from 
 here," Mrs. Baker wailed. "'Way last winter 
 — a month before you came. It got post- 
 marked, all right, and then it must have slipped 
 down between the end of the flooring and the 
 wall up to the post office, becuz when I went to 
 clean out a family of more than twenty trade 
 rats under the floor last May, I found it there. 
 I should have given it to you then" — she sobbed, 
 while hot tears of remorse rolled down her 
 plump cheeks — "but I figured it was from some 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 191 
 
 fellow that had gone away, and I didn't want 
 him to find you again. Oh, I can see now that 
 I made a terrible mistake! I see now that I 
 shouldn't have did it, becuz that's what you 
 came here for, all right — and there I went and 
 interfered. As soon as I saw there was no 
 friend of yours here, I thought — I thought it 
 wouldn't make any difference — so long as he'd 
 gone away. And now — and now maybe he's 
 gone for good, and you won't ever see him any 
 more." 
 
 Listening to this strange story, Alva felt her- 
 self undergoing a great change. Things began 
 to quiet down inside her. She knew who had 
 written the letter, and, since it was still in ex- 
 istence, she had time to pity the other's grief 
 and shame. 
 
 ''Amelia," she said, while her softened eyes 
 glowed with love for her well-meaning friend, 
 ''it's quite true that I'll never again see the man 
 who wrote that letter, but even if you'd given 
 it to me five minutes after it was found, I doubt 
 if it would have made any difference." 
 
 "0-h-h-h! Thank Heaven!" sobbed the 
 other. "But you can tell everybody right out 
 what I did, if you want. I'd just as lieve go to 
 jail, you know." 
 
192 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 *'No/' answered Alva, while she helped dry 
 the tears. ''You were just as honest then as 
 you are now. You were trying to help me, 
 Amelia — so it doesn't matter. Have you the 
 letter?'' 
 
 Mrs. Baker hunted lachrymosely for her 
 pocket. 
 
 ''After I give it to you, Fm going right 
 straight home," she said. "It don't seem like 
 I could ever look you in the face again. I 
 keep thinking about that poor fellow that might 
 have needed you all this time. Anyhow, I can 
 say for Randall that he didn't know. He'd 
 have made me give it right up." 
 
 "I'm not so sure," was the reply that followed 
 Mrs. Baker to the door. 
 
 At nine o'clock that night, when everything 
 had been cleared away, Alva locked her doors 
 and sat down to read her letter. 
 
 For a long time she held it, unopened, in her 
 lap, studying the postmark and the address. 
 His last letter — written February ist — nine 
 days before he was shot! What might it not 
 contain? The one previous to this had been 
 written several months before, and had spoken 
 only briefly about his claim and his new hopes. 
 What would she find in this ? Would it be like 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 193 
 
 the dear letters of earlier years, page on page 
 of love and living optimism? Would it show 
 him trembling on the verge of success? 
 Would it bring her the one thing for which, 
 even now, she would give anything she 
 possessed — the command to come and join him ? 
 She thought, as she tore the letter open, that 
 life would be almost bright again if she could 
 find merely that one word — ''Come !" As she 
 raised the first sheet to read, her trust was di- 
 minished in no way by the fact that the letter 
 had been written in an almost undecipherable 
 scrawl. 
 
 My Dearest Girl: I wrote you some time ago 
 telling you that I had made a big copper find out here. 
 I hoped then that everything would soon be all right 
 for you to come on. But things have turned against 
 me. I don't know just how I am going to come out. 
 
 Alva frowned, and read the paragraph again. 
 It was Donald's letter, but neither the writing 
 nor the tone seemed quite like Donald's. And 
 the words seemed very oddly sprawled across 
 the page. 
 
 As I say, I have had hard luck here. I thought that 
 this place would surely see me turning the trick, but 
 it doesn't look that way now. Everything seems 
 against me. I never saw its equal. 
 
194 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 I don't know what you will think of this, but if we 
 can't get the money together, I don't know what we 
 are going to do. You may think that this is pretty 
 rough on you, but it really isn't my fault. I had a 
 good claim out here until a man got it away from me 
 — a claim I could have sold for thirty thousand dollars. 
 But this man — I'll get him or he'll get me, some day — 
 did me out of it, and now I'm up against it again. 
 
 Perhaps this is the last letter I shall ever write you. 
 Frankly, I don't think there is any good in our writing 
 to each other any longer. We'll just have to — ■ 
 
 Alva reached the bottom of the second sheet, 
 and turned it over, trembling, to continue her 
 struggle with the frightful sentences v^hich 
 steadily grew less legible. 
 
 There was nothing written on the other side. 
 
 For a moment she looked about to assure her- 
 self that she had dropped no part of the letter 
 on the floor — then, little by little, came to a 
 realization of the awful truth: 
 
 The last page had not been inclosed! 
 
 The woman's face grew haggard. It would 
 not have been possible to strike her a harder 
 blow. Careless as Donald had always been, 
 his last neglect became a tragedy. 
 
 And yet, as she stared, unseeing, at the blank 
 wall of her tent, the true meaning of the letter 
 came home to her. Her fine, strong, fearless 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 195 
 
 boy — the boy who would go anywhere, fight 
 anything — had finally lost his grip. In a last 
 agony of contrition, he had been trying to give 
 her up as one of whom he was no longer 
 worthy. He had tried too hard — had worked 
 too long. And at last, when he was tired out 
 and sore and discouraged, a shrewder, stronger 
 man had beaten him. 
 
 She turned back to the sentence that had 
 burned itself into her memory — "I'll get him, 
 or he'll get me, some day." 
 
 So it was true, after all — what the man 
 Duncan had said. Everything was true — all 
 that her woman's instinct had told her, begin- 
 ning with his lie months ago about the mark 
 on her baggage; true that he had tricked the 
 claim away from Donald — true that he had 
 had him put away — true, all true — as true as 
 the fact that he had even had the hardihood to 
 wear as his own the love token she had given 
 Donald. 
 
 Alva laid the letter aside and rose up to 
 walk the floor. Long ago the proofs had ac- 
 cumulated, one after another, and now it was 
 no longer worth while to consider them. All 
 that had ended with Donald's letter. And to- 
 morrow the man would be gone out of her 
 
196 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 reach across Death Valley — perhaps forever. 
 
 With hands clenched tightly behind her, the 
 woman walked her tent hour after hour. 
 Sometimes she paused by her bedside to kneel 
 down and pray; sometimes she sank into her 
 chair, exhausted by her endless pacing, and sat 
 motionless for half an hour, struggling be- 
 tween despair and that grim force which still 
 drove her mind to studying out some way of 
 arriving at her ends. Midnight came and 
 passed and she still sat or walked about in the 
 darkness. At four in the morning she 
 pushed the flap of her tent to one side and 
 looked out. 
 
 Dawn was at hand, for the highest of the 
 western peaks was tipped with fire, but all the 
 valleys were still filled with great pools of mist, 
 and the gray half light made a grotesque 
 world seem still more grotesque and unreal. 
 The camp was quiet, the only sound coming 
 from a pair of mouse-colored burros nearby 
 in the sage. She looked again and knew whose 
 they were, for they were packed and ready for 
 the trail. As they moved vaguely here and 
 there, she caught the faint clink of some metal 
 articles fastened to the aparejos — a coffeepot 
 and a pan striking against the top of a burlap- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 197 
 
 wound canteen. Presently the burros saw her, 
 and, raising their moist noses from the ground, 
 came up in ghostly single file, seeking food. 
 When a few feet away, the foremost animal 
 stopped, looked hopefully at her, then dropped 
 his nose to the ground and sidled away. The 
 canteen, swung loosely from one corner of the 
 pack, slid forward. The coffeepot and the pan 
 clinked again. As she listened, she heard foot- 
 steps retreating up the street, and presently, 
 far off, the sound of a door closing in the 
 Miners' Hall. 
 
 And then in that unreal light and in that 
 hideous, unreal place where only wickedness 
 seemed actual fact, her way was made clear 
 to her at last. She would take the law into 
 her own hands ! 
 
 Quick as a flash, but as silent as a shadow, 
 she slipped into her kitchen and plucked the 
 sharp-pointed can opener from its nail on the 
 wall. Another swift, noiseless rush and she 
 was beside the slow-moving burros. As she 
 had expected, the canteens were full and drip- 
 ping, for he had submerged them in the tank 
 when he had filled them. She did not trouble 
 to look around to see if anyone were watching, 
 for the same curious impulse was driving her 
 
198 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 that had had her in its clutches the night be- 
 fore. Instinctively and entirely without fear, 
 she was about to do the one necessary thing — 
 the only thing left for her to do. 
 
 He would need no water until after he had 
 passed Furnace Creek on his way across the 
 valley. He had said, she remembered, that he 
 could make Bennett's Wells on two canteens. 
 Probably he would travel until late that night 
 and camp on the floor of the valley, far from 
 the small stream at Furnace Creek and 
 farther still from Bennett's Wells. If she 
 knew him at all, he would not think of turning 
 back, but would try, somehow, to reach the 
 Wells, even though the water in his canteens 
 had leaked away. As to what would ulti- 
 mately happen down there in the valley, she 
 had no doubt whatever. For once in her life 
 she thanked God that the man was physically 
 brave, for his fearlessness would be his un- 
 doing. 
 
 Alva felt with the point of the can opener 
 until she knew it had pierced the burlap and 
 was resting against the bottom of the canteen. 
 A sharp blow with the palm of her hand and 
 the steel went through. She waited a moment 
 to feel a tiny stream well out against her fin- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 199 
 
 ger, then punctured the other canteen in the 
 same way. If he traveled fast, his animals 
 would be kept ten yards or more ahead of him, 
 far enough for the slow dripping to escape his 
 eye. Drop by drop the precious water would 
 seep through the coverings and evaporate, or 
 fall on the hot ground in pellets of dust, curl 
 up, and be lost. Alva went back to her tent, 
 closed and locked the doors, and sat down to 
 wait for daylight. At the very last moment 
 she had found a way to vengeance — and the 
 outcome was absolutely certain. 
 
 And as she sat there, she found that she was 
 no longer restless or sick at heart. So great 
 was her sense of relief that it seemed as if she 
 had had a burning fever for months past, and 
 it had broken all in a moment, or as if a fright- 
 ful headache had suddenly passed away. Her 
 task was over and done with, and her mind was 
 once more as clear as a bell. 
 
 She did not even meditate on the frightful 
 end that was to come to him down there in the 
 yellow sink whose terrors he knew so well, be- 
 cause that was what she had come to Magnet 
 to accomplish. The tortures that he would pass 
 through did not interest her. Others had been 
 tortured, too, and, what was worse, had had 
 
200 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 to live. Torture itself was nothing, for its 
 memory would pass out of existence with life. 
 Let him be tortured. Who cared? 
 
 The burros nosed about in the brush for half 
 an hour — dawn streaked the east — the light 
 grew stronger. She heard the door up the 
 street close again. She went to her own door, 
 made sure it was fastened securely, came back 
 to her chair, and sat down. 
 
 Footsteps came near, and she knew from the 
 snap of the taut ropes that he was trying the 
 pack reatas for tightness. Then came the re- 
 peated clink of metal as the burros were headed 
 up the basin toward Furnace Creek and 
 prodded into a reluctant trot. Alva softly ex- 
 haled the deep breath she had been holding — 
 then caught herself, and sat bolt upright. 
 
 He was standing outside her door! 
 
 "Alva," he said, in a gentle voice that could 
 reach no ear but hers, *Tve come to say *good- 
 by.' Won't you wish me luck, little woman ?" 
 
 Alva's heart seemed to stop beating. 
 
 He waited a moment for her answer. 
 
 "I'll not be back soon," he said, with the old, 
 heart-searching note in his voice that once had 
 so nearly deceived her. "I know you're up 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 201 
 
 and around, because I heard you. It's a hard 
 job IVe tackled — but you know who it's for 
 this time, as well as I. I'm wishing you'd tell 
 a fellow 'good-by/ " 
 
 The woman sat rigid in her chair, her face 
 convulsed. As if there was nothing between 
 them, she could see him standing there without, 
 listening and waiting, the kind eyes pleading 
 with her gently, a strong brown hand raised 
 to hide the sensitive lips that quivered with 
 feeling. She prayed to Heaven for the mo- 
 ment to pass. She had not looked for this. 
 If only that pleading voice would cease! 
 
 *Tf you'd open the door," he said, "I have 
 something that belongs to you. I've kept it 
 too long — but you'd excuse the reason. If 
 you'll not say good-by, then I want it no 
 longer." 
 
 Alva clenched her hands to keep from 
 shrieking. She slipped down from her chair 
 to her knees. 
 
 ''Dear God," she whispered, with pallid lips, 
 ''God in heaven — take him — oh, take him 
 away !" 
 
 "Well," he said at last, "I guess it's over. 
 I'd have done anything in the whole wide 
 
202 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 world for you, Alva, but if you can't see me 
 as I am, then it's better that I stop trying to 
 make you see. I've gone as far as I can go. 
 Good-by." 
 
 And he was gone. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 AT nine o'clock that morning Alva walked 
 into Mrs. Baker's living room at the 
 post office. 
 
 ''Amelia/' she said decisively, "I'm leaving 
 Magnet on this afternoon's stage. Do you 
 v^ant to take the boarding house?" 
 
 Mrs. Baker, red-eyed from the night's 
 miseries, groped for a chair, and sat heavily 
 down. 
 
 "I knew I'd done it!" she wailed. "And 
 now you're going to go and never come back! 
 I'll never forgive myself as long as I live. 
 The boarding house! My sakes alive, dearie! 
 Baker and me haven't got money enough this 
 morning to borrow a stewed prune. If it 
 wasn't for the post-office job, we'd be sleeping 
 out in the brush. A new man went on the 
 wheel down to the Green Front last night, and 
 Baker's lost every good, iron dollar we ever 
 had!" With which sorrowful confession, 
 Mrs. Baker covered her head with her apron, 
 and shook with sobs. 
 
 203 
 
204 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 The Eastern woman's face lost its somber 
 look, and grew softly radiant. 
 
 *'But I'm not asking you to buy me out, 
 Amelia/' she said gently. "I'm only asking 
 if you want it. I think it will earn you another 
 home in Los Angeles if you're careful. I'm 
 giving it to you, Amelia — free and clear." 
 
 An hour later Alva's things were packed 
 and ready for the stage. She would leave as 
 she had come — silently. And as to why she 
 had come or gone, no one in Magnet would 
 ever be the wiser. 
 
 She stood in her doorway for a while, as had 
 been her wont, and looked out for a last time on 
 this curious place that had absorbed her life for 
 six long months. But there was none of it 
 that she wished to remember, nor was she con- 
 scious of any emotion except an overwhelming 
 desire to make her escape as soon as possible. 
 Presently she put on her hat, and set out 
 through the sagebrush behind the tents toward 
 the cemetery on the hill. To-day she could 
 stand beside her grave without reproach. 
 
 But because she suddenly began to feel ter- 
 ribly tired, she did not raise her eyes till she 
 was nearly there. When she did so, she saw 
 the red-haired woman, in a spangled dress and 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 205 
 
 with nothing on her head, sitting on the ground 
 in the blazing sunHght beside the headboard. 
 Looking a Httle closer, she saw that the woman 
 was drunk. 
 
 *'Oh, it's you, is it?" the woman said con- 
 temptuously. "Go away and let me alone. 
 Tm all right — and no bother." 
 
 "I haven't come to interrupt you," Alva 
 answered. 
 
 *Then why are you here?" was the query. 
 "But I don't care," the woman went on, and 
 took a drink from a bottle beside her. "I've 
 beaten you, Miss Iceberg — and no mistake 
 about that. Dick Randall's gone — and he 
 won't ever come back!" 
 
 "I know," Alva answered, and began to move 
 away. "He's gone down to the Valley after 
 a mine." 
 
 "Ha! Ha!" said the red-haired woman. 
 "Ha-ha-ha ! That's pretty good. Yes. That 
 might even be called Very fair.' Gone down 
 to the valley after a mine, eh ? Yes, he's gone 
 to the Valley, all right — the Valley of the 
 Shadow of Death! How's that, Miss Don't- 
 touch-me? How's that for Bible learning? 
 And he won't ever come back!" 
 
 Alva stopped and looked back, more with 
 
2o6 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 curiosity than fear. Could it be that the other 
 knew what had been done to the canteens ? 
 
 The look, however, was too searching to 
 suit the other, and she promptly took offense. 
 And as she glared back at the Eastern woman, 
 something seemed to pierce a hidden sac and 
 let the gall-like bitterness of life for such as 
 she flow out and poison eyes and face. Yet 
 convulsed and hideous with anger though her 
 face was, there was a curious glitter of triumph 
 in her eyes. 
 
 'TVe been watching you for some time," she 
 said venomously. "You thought you were go- 
 ing to get Dick Randall for a husband — but 
 you won't. I saw him kissing you yesterday. 
 Well, you'll never kiss him again. Dick Ran- 
 dall wouldn't as much as look at the likes of 
 me, and I've been a fool to think he would, but 
 I've come up even with the game at last, 'cause 
 I'm even with youT 
 
 Alva wondered. So Randall had never as- 
 sociated with the woman, after all ! However, 
 it did not matter. 
 
 ''How are you 'even' with me?" she asked, 
 for the woman's significant tones rang in her 
 ears. 
 
 As the woman began to answer, the con- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 207 
 
 sciousness of what she was confessing seemed 
 to sober her. 
 
 *'Dick Randall was the finest man I ever 
 knew/' she said, " but he's dead now, and 
 there's an end to him. If it hadn't been for 
 you, he would have been mine. I knew the 
 kind of man he was. He wanted a woman 
 with a heart and a body — and he would have 
 given her all of his in return. 
 
 ''There was no one here before you came, 
 and I was straightening up. I'd have been a 
 good woman again — the best kind of a woman 
 for a man like him — if you hadn't come along. 
 For — what kind of a woman does a man like 
 him want ? He wants a woman that will stick 
 by him day in, day out, forever. He wants a 
 woman that will sleep anywhere, eat anywhere, 
 live anywhere — one that will go along with 
 him in this rough country and help him with 
 her common sense and her bravery — one that 
 will see how he's building himself up every day, 
 and who wants to be part of everything he 
 does. He wants someone he can turn to — 
 someone that will take the trouble to look down 
 into his mind and see what he's trying to do for 
 them both. He wants someone who can look 
 ahead and see the big future that's coming, and 
 
2o8 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 be satisfied in the meantime with one good, 
 decent man. He doesn't want a wife — he 
 wants a mate! If a woman's going to stay out 
 her life in this mining country, that's what 
 she's got to be if she wants to be worthy of a 
 man Hke him. If she don't Hke the Hfe and 
 can't see what's coming up, then let her get 
 out! 
 
 **If you'd have been a regular Easterner, I 
 wouldn't have been afraid of you for a minute. 
 But he thought you were the kind of a woman 
 I've been talking about, and so when he knew 
 you were a good woman, too, it was all over 
 for me. I think he knew somehow that I'd 
 fight for him twenty times where you'd only 
 turn and run, but probably the other side of it 
 was too much against me. Since then I've 
 tried to show him what I'd do for him, but it 
 wasn't any use. 
 
 "Life's been hard for me. I guess God didn't 
 figure on my amounting to much all along from 
 the start. But if I can't ever get into your 
 class, along of no fault of my own, why, then 
 you can be mighty sure that you'll never get 
 the man / wanted. You've said your last love 
 words to Dick Randall, Miss All Right — and 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 209 
 
 youVe kissed your last kiss. Before he went 
 away, I slipped some cyanide into his can- 
 teens r 
 
 *'Some what F" Sisktd Alva, only partly un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 ''Cyanide, you fool/' replied the other con- 
 temptuously. *'If he drinks a drop, he's done. 
 And I guess it's all over now. So you won't 
 get him !" 
 
 Alva sank down on the ground on the other 
 side of the grave. 
 
 "So you really tried to kill him!" she said, 
 in an astonished whisper. ''Why — why, what 
 a curious thing to do!" 
 
 "Why curious?" the woman retorted an- 
 grily. "You were in love with him, and he 
 with you. I couldn't figure out how to get rid 
 of you, so I did him. And no one will ever 
 know how it was done, until you tell. Then 
 it'll be too late." 
 
 "That's true," Alva answered, misunder- 
 standing the last remark. "Probably he won't 
 be found for weeks. But why did you do it? 
 I didn't love him." 
 
 The red-haired woman first looked as if she 
 had not heard clearly, then shook her head 
 
2IO HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 in refusal of the idea. But finally her face 
 began to show surprise over Alva's lack of in- 
 terest. 
 
 *'Don't talk like that/' she said, with a weary 
 gesture. "No plain, ordinary woman can fool 
 me. I can see through you like a pane of 
 glass." 
 
 ''But I say you are wrong!" Alva insisted. 
 'T couldn't love him. I hated him. He was 
 my worst enemy !" 
 
 *'Go along, child!" was the tired rejoinder, 
 as the woman took a drink from her bottle. 
 **I don't know why you're saying it, but if it 
 pleases you, why, go right ahead. You can't 
 bother me. Nothing can." 
 
 Alva reached across the grave and, with her 
 hand on the other's, held the bottle down on 
 the ground. 
 
 ''Lillian," she said, with white anger, "if I 
 asked you to believe every word I utter just 
 as if your own mother told you, would you 
 believe me thenf 
 
 "Sakes alive! Ain't she growing wild?" 
 ejaculated the other. "Well, what is it, 
 dearie? Tell mamma all about it. Do you 
 think he shot young Jaffray?" 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 211 
 
 "I know it/' Alva answered, and wondered 
 how the other had guessed it. 
 
 ''And what did you do to him for that?'' 
 jeered the woman. "Something deviHsh, I 
 s'pose — Hke me." 
 
 ''Yes/' said Alva quietly, and looked her 
 square in the eyes. "Just — like — you!" 
 
 The woman frowned a little and blinked her 
 bloodshot eyes. She took a long breath, and 
 straightened up as if to collect her faculties. 
 
 "It's all right to fool a little/' she said, "but 
 don't let it go too far. You were in love with 
 that man ever since the day you met, whether 
 you know it or not. He knew it, too, and 
 that's why I stood no show. But you couldn't 
 do him any harm. You haven't had the right 
 bringing up for killing/' 
 
 "He murdered Donald Jaffray," Alva an- 
 swered stonily. "There was no one to punish 
 him for it, and no way to do it. So I did it 
 myself — like you. Does that look as if I loved 
 him?" 
 
 The woman's eyes grew stronger and 
 clearer. They glittered with a strange light 
 in which approaching horror was mixed with 
 a near understanding. Her dry, colorless lips 
 
212 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 moved soundlessly. Her gaze was riveted on 
 Alva's somber face. 
 
 "Why, woman r she whispered, and grew 
 pallid. "You're telling the truth !" 
 
 "I am," Alva answered, and it was impos- 
 sible not to read the honesty in her tones. 
 *'Now will you believe me?" 
 
 The other woman seemed to turn to stone. 
 
 "You, too!" she whispered, while her hand 
 clawed at her cheek. "Oh, God ! You, too !" 
 
 Then something inside her seemed to die. 
 There had never been overmuch of either hope 
 or happiness in her face at any time, and now 
 even those faint lights flickered and went out 
 forever. Her face went from red to the dead 
 gray of ashes. Her eyes were as blank as a 
 wall. 
 
 "And thafs the biggest joke of all !" she said. 
 "The game was against me from the start, but 
 now the last card's out of the box." 
 
 She stared unseeingly before her for a mo- 
 ment, then broke into an awful, jeering laugh. 
 
 "That's certainly a screamer on us two," she 
 said. ''You tried to kill him because you 
 thought he'd done up Jaff ray, and / tried to do 
 it because I thought you were in love with him 
 — and we were both wrong. Two fool 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 213 
 
 women!'' she ground out, between her teeth. 
 "May God in His mercy have pity on our 
 souls!" 
 
 Alva didn't understand. 
 
 "He shot him," she repeated somberly, and 
 pointed at the grave between. "There he lies." 
 
 The red-haired woman gave her a startled 
 look that seemed to question her sanity. 
 
 "Yes. There he lies'' she answered, with 
 fathomless contempt. "And he's still lying to 
 you — ^just like he lied when he was alive !" 
 
 Seeing that she wasn't understood, she sud- 
 denly grew furiously angry. With a sweep of 
 her hand, she struck Alva a stinging blow on 
 the cheek. 
 
 "Wake up, woman!" she cried, with white- 
 hot wrath. "Wake up and let me tell you 
 something about this man — this wonderful man 
 of yours that you tried to kill Dick Randall for 
 — though you* don't say how you did it." 
 Springing up like an aroused tigress, she jerked 
 Alva to her feet with a powerful clutch of her 
 hand. 
 
 "Look down there at that grave!" she 
 screamed. "Look down in there, and see if 
 you see the fine, Christian gentleman that you 
 thought you had. 0-h-h-h ! I know all about 
 
214 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 you, and why you came to Magnet, and if you 
 hadn't fooled me and fooled Dick Randall, I'd 
 have put you right long ago. 
 
 "Look down!'' she cried, and pointed a 
 quivering finger at the grave. "There lies a 
 man who was no good! Don Jaffray was his 
 name. And when I tell you that he was no 
 good, remember that it's me that's telling you 
 — me, who knows more about men in ten sec- 
 onds than you'd know in ten years — me, who's 
 been with 'em from Alaska to Arizona — drank 
 with 'em, ate with 'em, lived with 'em, wasted 
 my life for 'em. And I tell you that this fel- 
 low was the poorest, weakest, lowest specimen 
 of a man that ever walked this desert. He 
 never amounted to anything — he never could. 
 All he had was a smile and a way with women. 
 Do anything for himf Try to get justice for 
 himt Commit murder for himf Why — ^he 
 was worse than Danny the Bum ever thought 
 of being, for while he was writing his precious 
 love letters to you, he was spending all his 
 money on meT 
 
 "Lies ! Lies !" came the frantic cry, as, with 
 face convulsed, Alva tried to strike the other 
 down. "You don't know what you're saying. 
 You have no proof!" 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 215 
 
 "Is it proof you want?" the woman cried, 
 springing back out of reach. 'Then here it is. 
 There's part of a letter down in my tent right 
 now that he wrote you last winter while he was 
 in my own room. Now will you believe me? 
 
 ''Oh, I guess you will," she went on, with a 
 contemptuous glance at the blanched cheeks. 
 "That's always the way with you soft women. 
 You haven't got sense enough to pick a 
 good man to kill for. I suppose, like as not, 
 he told you that he'd got done out of his claim. 
 He used to tell me that, too — till I shut him 
 up. Don Jaffray lost his claim because he was 
 too drunk to get out and do his holding work. 
 When time was up, it was Randall who did the 
 work, and then went and gave him some 
 money, which he didn't have to do. Oh, yes, 
 he was a fine one ! If I'd ever been in love with 
 Donald Jaffray, I'd want to go away and hide 
 riiy head. Why, I even got him to sell his 
 watch so as to give me money. Perhaps Ran- 
 dall bought that, too." 
 
 Alva stood amid the ruins of her world, and 
 saw the earth opening beneath her feet. The 
 red-haired woman might have picked a hun- 
 dred different sins and called them Donald's, 
 and had only scorn for her pains, but the fact 
 
2i6 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 remained that she had made the one statement 
 that Alva knew was unquestionably true. She 
 had proved the one unforgivable thing that 
 made all the others possible. 
 
 "He shot him !" Alva whispered, not because 
 that was what she thought, but because her 
 mind had stopped working and her lips were 
 merely repeating what they had been long 
 formed to say. "He shot him," she said again, 
 and then was done. 
 
 "He never shot him !" the red-haired woman 
 screamed like a fury in her ear. ^^He shot 
 himself! Danny the Bum saw him do it!" 
 
 She thrust her hand into her waist, and 
 pulled out a battered notebook. "See that, you 
 fool! That's Danny's precious book that I 
 found on his body yesterday. He was the only 
 man in Magnet who knew how Jaffray died." 
 Fumbling it frantically, she spread out a torn 
 page under Alva's staring eyes. "Look at it 
 and read it yourself." 
 
 And Alva read : 
 
 Last nite I see a yung feller shoot himself out in 
 the brush back of the Red Onion abt %. mile. He 
 done it with an old stile Frontier Colt 44 with 2 nics 
 in the but. I could only get $1 for it 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 217 
 
 After a long pause Alva lifted her eyes 
 slowly from the page. 
 
 'Then— he— didn't— kill— him— after all !" 
 she said, with a frightful effort. "I — have — 
 been — wrong — from — the — start !" 
 
 The red-haired woman laughed and tossed 
 the book away. 
 
 'That's what," she said. 'That bet goes for 
 both of us. We were wrong from the start." 
 Her vitality seemed to wane, and she sank 
 down, dull-eyed, on the ground. "How could 
 I ever have figured to get right !" 
 
 Still on her feet, though her senses reeled, 
 the woman from the East clutched at her 
 throat in a strangled effort to speak. "We've 
 killed him!" she shrieked, as the truth came 
 home. "We've killed that good man — and 
 there was no reason !" 
 
 "There was, but there ain't," the other an- 
 swered, in a dead voice. "And the difference 
 between seeing things as they are and as they 
 aint is what makes lives right or wrong. I 
 didn't know that anybody could be as crazy as 
 I am, but I guess you're it. Now, go along 
 and leave me. Because / am done!" And she 
 turned her back and began to fumble with a 
 
2i8 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 knot in her handkerchief where she had kept 
 something concealed. But before she un- 
 covered it, she raised the bottle once more. 
 
 ''Here's to Dick Randall/' she said. ''A last 
 drink to the whitest man in heaven. If he isn't 
 there yet, he mighty soon will be." 
 
 And then the light that had been withheld 
 from Alva Leigh for so many months came 
 back into her mind. Struck dumb with horror, 
 she realized that her morbid brooding had 
 blunted her sense of right and wrong, had 
 stolen away her womanliness long before she 
 had ever come to Magnet. And she saw now 
 what the desert madness had wrought for she 
 had misread every good motive, interpreted 
 every honest act with suspicious, jaundiced 
 eyes. 
 
 Although she would never have understood 
 if his own surroundings had not also been hers 
 she could see the reasons for Donald's failure 
 and all the progressions of his fall. The evi- 
 dence had been given and no futile wish of hers 
 could change it. It lay in every self-excusing 
 line he had written for four years — in what he 
 had not written — and, above all, in what he had 
 written, but had never sent. Lack of will- 
 power, loneliness, bad companions and drink 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 219 
 
 had changed the boy from an irresponsible 
 rover into a broken, moral-less wreck, — and re- 
 morse had done the rest. The desert had 
 beaten him. 
 
 With this lightning stroke of revelation the 
 image of Donald Jaffray which, for all these 
 years had been her most precious possession, 
 passed out of Alva Leigh's mind forever. An- 
 other rose up in its place — one that was nobler 
 and more manlike in its indomitable strength. 
 She saw the western desert man, of the un- 
 daunted boyhood and masterful years, as he 
 came to her rescue on the first night. Again — 
 she saw him as day by day he did her secret 
 kindnesses. And she saw him as, for the last 
 time, he spoke his saddened good-by outside 
 her door. She knew now that somewhere 
 among those steadfast months her first true 
 conception of life had been born through him 
 and with it had come a friendship which had 
 been her only salvation — and the oflfer of some- 
 thing far more wonderful than friendship. As 
 her new image became transfigured by these 
 thoughts the light of faith and love which shone 
 in his kind eyes was more than she could 
 bear. 
 
 To add to her agony, the reasons for every- 
 
220 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 thing he had done were now so crystal clear. 
 She saw that he had done her a friendly act, 
 even before she had set out for Magnet, for it 
 had been he who had sent her the marked news- 
 paper months ago. It was plain that he had 
 known who she was, and why she had come 
 to Magnet from the very first, and a great 
 wave of shame swept over her when she 
 thought of the insults whose prompting suspi- 
 cion he must have understood so well. 
 
 And yet the short moment in which all these 
 things were made clear did not permit her to 
 review each scene and action by itself. In- 
 stead, she seemed to see all of them simultan- 
 eously, like some great composite picture in 
 which she constantly recognized new proofs 
 of that blessed gift which she had so blindly 
 refused — a picture so true that it finally led her 
 on to her own actions and the inexorable end. 
 
 For a little while she tried to reject the idea 
 that she had deliberately planned to kill an- 
 other human being. Now that everything was 
 clear, it was unbelievable that crime and the 
 Alva Leigh whose purposes she knew so well 
 could ever have joined hands. She thought of 
 her family traditions, her religious beliefs, her 
 carefully guarded girlhood, of every protect- 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 221 
 
 ing, sane-minded influence that had surrounded 
 her Hfe since the day of her birth, and crimi- 
 nahty, for Alva Leigh, became an impossible 
 thing. She thought of Natalie — of Sally — of 
 Nannie Ferguson waiting faithfully at home — 
 of her old girl . friends — of all the beautiful 
 things that memory's world held — of the far 
 more beautiful world to which someone had 
 lately given her the key — and she was ready to 
 cast the idea out of mind for a hideous night- 
 mare. And then she remembered Mrs. 
 Baker's astonishment at the change that the 
 desert had wrought, and was filled with awful 
 fright. Could it possibly be that she, Alva 
 Leigh, had become a wicked woman? 
 
 A dreadful vision filled her eyes. She 
 seemed to see her family, her friends, herself 
 in the person of her earlier life, on the other 
 side of a great gap whose abyss was infinite in 
 depth. Upon the nearer brink stood the Alva 
 Leigh of to-day, blackened forever with the 
 same pitch that defiled the lost soul beside her. 
 
 She stood still, agonized, while yellow hills 
 and sky and blazing sun rocked up and down. 
 The world grew dark, and she heard no sounds. 
 Sanity trembled in the balance. Then her body 
 revolted under the strain, — her heart began 
 
222 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 to beat once more. The blood flowed through 
 her veins with an agonizing tingHng. Sight 
 and hearing returned apace. She came in 
 touch with Hfe again. 
 
 And with her returning senses, the words 
 that the other woman had last spoken came 
 back to her, fresh and vivid. Her eyes opened 
 wildly — she gasped from a dry throat, then 
 flung up her hands to heaven with a cry. 
 
 ''Not dead," she shrieked. ''Not dead yet! 
 God help me to reach him V And with never 
 a backward glance she whirled away and went 
 running down the hill. 
 
 It was only a little after ten o'clock. Even 
 if he had traveled fast, he would now be only 
 halfway to Furnace Creek. Could she hope 
 to overtake him ? It did not occur to her that 
 a drink from his canteen would be governed 
 more by thirst than by the time of day — all she 
 could think of was a great gray basin between 
 ragged mountains and the figure of a man plod- 
 ding along behind two burros through a sea of 
 sage. Then she realized with awful dismay 
 that she could never hope to reach him if she 
 went on foot. She must go in a wagon or else 
 find a horse. And so she did not stop at her 
 tent longer than to snatch the dripping canvas 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 223 
 
 water-bag from its nail outside the door. 
 Then she rushed on behind the tents toward the 
 lumber yard below the town, for it often hap- 
 pened at this time of day that the horse on 
 which Andy made his excursions to the outly- 
 ing shafts stood, saddled and bridled, in a cor- 
 ral in one corner of the yard. 
 
 As she hurried through the brush, the sight 
 of the idlers in the streets filled her with agony. 
 She wanted to cry out to them — to stop their 
 foolish joking and shock them into action. 
 The thought that there was no time to speak 
 the word that would change that lazy scene 
 into an uproar — that she alone must carry 
 the terrible knowledge in her mind until the 
 end set her in a frenzy. Then she turned the 
 last tent and gasped with relief, for the horse 
 was standing in the corral, ready saddled and 
 bridled, and nosing over the fence to see who 
 was coming. 
 
 A few steps more and she had pulled the gate 
 bars out and was untying the halter. Throw- 
 ing the loop of the water bag over the pommel, 
 she tried to lead the animal close to the fence 
 so that she could mount. When he failed to 
 understand her excited tugging, she struck him 
 frantically with her clenched fist, and sobbed 
 
224 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 aloud over her impotence. But he soon threw 
 up his head with a jerk and sidled nearer the 
 fence, and, without stopping to try the cinch, 
 she stepped up on the boards, and got into the 
 saddle. 
 
 All told, it was a bare three minutes after 
 the red-haired woman's last words had been 
 spoken before Alva was galloping furiously 
 down the long slope of the basin toward Death 
 Valley. 
 
 And as she rode she was unmindful either of 
 
 the loose girth beneath her or of the hell of 
 
 heat overhead, for a new anguish had been 
 
 added to her burden. 
 
 She loved him. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 Up on the hot hillside the red-haired woman 
 in her spangled dress sat picking laboriously at 
 the knot in her handkerchief. She succeeded 
 in opening it after a time, and took out a lump 
 of something that stuck to her fingers as she 
 handled it. Breathing heavily, she raised it to 
 her tongue for a tentative taste. Then she 
 sighed once or twice, and swallowed it. The 
 lump had seemed small and white, like a cube 
 of sugar. But it was not sugar, and after a 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 225 
 
 moment the woman shuddered and lay down 
 beside the grave. 
 
 'The difference between seeing things as 
 they are and as they ain't/' 
 
 For the hundredth time Alva's straining eyes 
 picked out a distant figure in the sage only to 
 drop it again in despair, and think of the red- 
 haired woman's bitter sally. The faint black 
 shape had been only the trunk of a Joshua 
 palm, lurching from side to side in the heat 
 waves that eddied liquidly in the air, grotesque 
 and hideous with its outflung arms, and yet not 
 a whit more grotesque than the images that 
 she had thought so real for all those months. 
 
 Her face grew haggard. Miles back she 
 had lost her hat, and her head was frightfully 
 hot. She had never before ridden a horse for 
 a tenth of the distance she had already covered 
 in the hour past, and the stirrups were too 
 long and the leathers too short. She could 
 only grip as best she might with her sore, 
 weakened knees, and hold to the pommel with 
 both hands. 
 
 A half hour later she felt herself swaying in 
 the saddle, and, taking up the water bag, she 
 
226 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 poured a little of its contents on the crown of 
 her head. Then, instead of drinking, she hung 
 the bag where it had been before, and fixed her 
 hands in a deathlike clutch on the pommel, re- 
 solved to ride that way until she fainted dead 
 away. As to how far she had come, she could 
 not even guess, but she felt that her furious 
 riding must be bringing her very near, and 
 every moment she searched the view ahead 
 more closely than before. Up and down over 
 the swales she rode, pausing occasionally on a 
 crest to peer ahead, and then plunge down the 
 other side, urging her tired animal on with 
 voice and heel. Once, as she trotted down a 
 slope, she found the saddle sliding down on the 
 horse's neck, but as she knew only vaguely what 
 the trouble was, she did not think of dismount- 
 ing and tightening the cinch. She had begun 
 to repeat some words to herself. 
 
 ''You must not drink T Over and over 
 again she said it — monotonously, untiringly — 
 singing it and shouting it — striving to throw 
 it out ahead of her, so that if there were such 
 a thing as telepathy, the thought wave might 
 reach his mind. "You must not drink!'' she 
 cried frantically. "You must live! Live! 
 Do you hear me ?" 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 227 
 
 Her horse stumbled, with one foot in a 
 gopher hole, and she caught him up savagely. 
 He broke into a run, and, suddenly, she saw 
 the saddle turning under her. Too startled to 
 know what to do, she felt herself falling off 
 to one side, and in another moment was lying- 
 unconscious on the stone-crusted ground while 
 the horse dashed on. When she finally came 
 to her senses and realized what had happened, 
 the animal was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 The woman gazed around her at the pano- 
 rama of bone-dry desert and flaming hills, and 
 threw up her hands to heaven with an inartic- 
 ulate cry for help. Her head was muddied 
 and her face was covered with dirt where she 
 had rolled in the dust. Her dress was torn, 
 and a bright rivulet of blood flowed down from 
 her cheek from a cut on her forehead. But 
 none of these things mattered now, and, with 
 her eyes wild with anguish over her terrible 
 predicament, she strove to collect her scattered 
 senses so that she could decide which way to 
 go. Finally, she put the sun behind her where 
 it had been before, and stumbled away through 
 the brush. She would go north, as she had 
 been going before she fell — and he must not 
 drink — he must not drink! 
 
228 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 Her foot tripped over something, and she 
 saw the water bag where it had fallen when 
 the saddle turned. The stopper was still in 
 its neck, and she stooped with incredible effort 
 and picked it up. 
 
 ''Richard!'' she called. "Here is water for 
 you ! Water — water, Richard. But you must 
 not drink r 
 
 A mile farther and now the sun was like a 
 furnace mouth! Around her the Joshuas 
 lurched and stuck out their gnarled arms at 
 her. She found herself lost in a great clump 
 of them. One caught her dress and seemed to 
 try to draw her nearer. She struck out at it, 
 terrified, and reeled away. 
 
 "Richard! Richard!" she cri.ed. "They're 
 trying to take the water away from me ! But 
 you must not drink it, even if I bring it to you. 
 I'm a murderess, Richard, and I'm bringing 
 you poisoned water. Wait — oh-h-h, zvaitT 
 
 At the foot of a high swale she found she 
 could go no farther, and sank down on her side 
 in the hard yellow sand of the wash. She 
 could not see very well now, and the clamor in 
 her ears was that of a thousand boilers being 
 riveted all at once. 
 
 "I wanted you to wait," she sobbed. "You 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 229 
 
 said I'd help you find me some day. I laughed 
 at you then — and I tried to kill you, too — ^but 
 it's all happening just as you said. I said I 
 didn't love you — but I lied, Richard — Rich- 
 ard!" she whispered humbly. "Will you ask 
 me again?" 
 
 The clangor was abating in her ears now. 
 It was not, however, because there were no 
 more boilers to rivet, but because the engine 
 that furnished the power was running down. 
 A few more revolutions and the noise would 
 cease. Alva thought it would be a great re- 
 lief. 
 
 And so the first time she heard the new 
 sound she did not recognize it. It was a thin 
 sound, and very faint and it seemed to come 
 from a long way off — the clink of a coffeepot 
 and a pan against the top of a burlap-wound 
 canteen. But when it came a second time, she 
 struggled to her knees and put her hand to her 
 ear. Another clink and the sound seemed 
 closer. She staggered to her feet — ^her eyes 
 opened wide with hope — she stumbled down 
 the arroyo with arms outstretched. 
 
 A mouse-colored burro came into view 
 around the end of the swale. It walked a few 
 steps farther, stopped, sidled off to one side. 
 
230 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 and looked around. A few feet behind stood 
 another burro and beside it a man, unfasten- 
 ing something from its pack. 
 
 With her last remaining strength she ran 
 forward, cried out her warning and fell prone 
 in his arms. The canteen dropped on the 
 ground and rolled away. 
 
 Her eyes opened slowly. 
 
 At first she could not tell where she was, for 
 everything was blurred, but she soon found 
 that she was lying in the cool shade of a ledge 
 with part of his pack for a pillow. Something 
 cold was on her forehead, and, as her eyes 
 cleared, she saw him wetting a second hand- 
 kerchief with water from the canvas bag. Her 
 heart leaped. The warning cry rose to her 
 lips. Then, almost as quickly, she began to 
 relax. Little by little the frightful tension 
 eased and in another moment she dropped back 
 on the rough bed with every anguish dissolved 
 forever in a flood of heavenly peace. The 
 thing she had done to harm him had proved 
 the single cause of his salvation. The poi- 
 soned water had leaked away. 
 
 When she looked up again, he was bending 
 over her, his face worried and strained. 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 231 
 
 For a long time she was silent. As she 
 looked up into his face her eyes were only 
 deep pools of tears. Helpless under the 
 weight of her sin, she might not try to discover 
 either what he suspected or what he knew. 
 Perhaps the good-by that she had never said 
 might as well be spoken now, — she could not 
 tell. She only knew that if mortal happiness 
 were ever to be hers, it must come from him. 
 whom she had tried to injure. Yet her eyes 
 were brave and steadfast, for behind them 
 lay the strength of will to atone, if need 
 were, with life itself. And so her look came 
 straight and pure from her pure soul — asked, 
 bravely for all she had thrown away — and won 
 it. 
 
 She put up her hand and drew his face down 
 to her own. 
 
 ''You said Fd help you find me, Richard,'' 
 she whispered, ''and here I am. Fve been 
 wrong from the start, but, please God, Fm 
 right now! Will you forgive me — and kiss 
 me, Richard?" 
 
 Some hours later the burros were headed 
 home. He walked beside her as she rode, and 
 now the long miles of the daytime were all too 
 short. 
 
2Z2 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 ^'You'll lose the Gun Sight, Richard," she 
 said remorsefully. *'You forgave me too 
 soon/' 
 
 "I have won more than any mine," he an- 
 swered soberly. *'But we'll not lose it. The 
 claims have been recorded. We'll be there — 
 both of us— in the Fall" 
 
 Her hand sought his and rested in it. Her 
 lips tried to form the old, old vow : 
 
 " 'Whither thou goest, I will go. Thy peo- 
 ple shall be my people — ' " 
 
 Her voice broke over the solemn words. 
 She was only a girl, after all, and she had sud- 
 denly begun to feel terribly alone. It was a 
 strange life on which she was entering — a 
 strange, strange ending to all her plans. 
 
 And then his arm went round her, and all 
 her troubles passed away. Wherever they 
 might go — whatever might happen — she knew 
 that she would never be alone again, nor would 
 the new life with him seem strange. She was 
 coming to woman's full estate; already its 
 boundless reaches were in sight, and their 
 glory dimmed the dreadful valley that she, as 
 well as he, had barely escaped. 
 
 And so, held in the circle of his arm, she 
 rode up the last swale and saw Magnet. The 
 
HEARTS STEADFAST 233 
 
 lights were out and the moon was shining. 
 The tents were as beautiful as driven snow. 
 It was Magnet, and yet it was not the mad- 
 house of wickedness and distorted images that 
 she had left that day, for she was seeing it 
 now with the clear eyes of the man beside her, 
 and in the light of an abiding peace. It was 
 where love had found her, in spite of herself, 
 and where love would cleanse all. 
 
 She drew him close and knew he understood 
 her thought. 
 
 "I have been a sick woman, Richard." 
 
 "The desert has cured you, then," he an- 
 swered. ''For us two, it has been a friend." 
 
 He pondered for a moment, then felt in his 
 pocket for his watch. He opened it and held 
 it out in the moonlight so that she might see 
 the inside of the case. 
 
 She saw her own face. 
 
 *TVe waited a long time for you, Alva," he 
 said simply. *T knew you from the very first. 
 But even before that, I knew that you would 
 be the woman I would want." 
 
 She could not trust herself to speak. Her 
 eyes could only envelop him with their soft 
 love light. She slipped the picture from its 
 hiding place, and dropped the watch underfoot. 
 
234 HEARTS STEADFAST 
 
 He nodded understandingly, and smiled, 
 then put the tiny photograph away in his coat. 
 
 "You knew me ? Then you know what I've 
 thought — and done?" she asked directly, for 
 less than the whole truth now would not suffice. 
 
 For answer, he gathered her close in his 
 arms, the light of a great wonder in his face. 
 
 *T know — and have forgotten," he said. 
 "You are too brave! If I asked you to tell 
 me, you'd do it if it killed you — and that would 
 kill me, too." He paused and then, with an in- 
 stant's wonderful illumination, let her see abid- 
 ing sanctuary for her tortured soul. ''We 
 have not come up out of our valley to look 
 backr 
 
 And with those words, the door to the past 
 closed forever — and Alva Leigh came back to 
 happiness and Magnet. 
 
 THE END 
 
i:B 3346 
 
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 P'rn 
 
 
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