Slone kept under the dark lee of the bluff and worked around so that he could be above the village, where there was little danger of meeting any one.  Yet presently he had to go out of the shadow into the moon-blanched lane.  Swift and silent as an Indian he went along, keeping in the shade of what trees there were, until he came to the grove of cottonwoods.  The grove was a black mystery lanced by silver rays.  He slipped in among the trees, halting every few steps to listen.  The action, the realization had helped to make him cool, to steel him, though never before in his life had he been so exalted.  The pursuit and capture of Wildfire, at one time the desire of his heart, were as nothing to this.  Love had called him—­and life—­and he knew death hung in the balance.  If Bostil found him seeking Lucy there would be blood spilled.  Slone quaked at the thought, for the cold and ghastly oppression following the death he had meted out to Sears came to him at times.  But such thoughts were fleeting; only one thought really held his mind—­and the one was that Lucy loved him, had sent strange, wild, passionate words to him.

He found the narrow path, its white crossed by slowly moving black bars of shadow, and stealthily he followed this, keen of eye and ear, stopping at every rustle.  He well knew the bench Lucy had mentioned.  It was in a remote corner of the grove, under big trees near the spring.  Once Slone thought he had a glimpse of white.  Perhaps it was only moonlight.  He slipped on and on, and when beyond the branching paths that led toward the house he breathed freer.  The grove appeared deserted.  At last he crossed the runway from the spring, smelled the cool, wet moss and watercress, and saw the big cottonwood, looming dark above the other trees.  A patch of moonlight brightened a little glade just at the edge of dense shade cast by the cottonwood.  Here the bench stood.  It was empty!

Slone’s rapture vanished.  He was suddenly chilled.  She was not there!  She might have been intercepted.  He would not see her.  The disappointment, the sudden relaxation, was horrible.  Then a white, slender shape flashed from beside the black tree-trunk and flew toward him.  It was noiseless, like a specter, and swift as the wind.  Was he dreaming?  He felt so strange.  Then—­the white shape reached him and he knew.

Lucy leaped into his arms.

“Lin!  Lin!  Oh, I’m so—­so glad to see you!” she whispered.  She seemed breathless, keen, new to him, not in the least afraid nor shy.  Slone could only hold her.  He could not have spoken, even if she had given him a chance.  “I know everything—­what they accuse you of—­how the riders treated you—­how my dad struck you.  Oh! . . .  He’s a brute!  I hate him for that.  Why didn’t you keep out of his way? . . .  Van saw it all.  Oh, I hate him, too!  He said you lay still—­where you fell! . . .  Dear Lin, that blow may have hurt you dreadfully—­shamed you because you couldn’t strike back at my dad—­but it reached me, too.  It hurt me.  It woke my heart. . . .  Where—­where did he hit you?  Oh, I’ve seen him hit men!  His terrible fists!”