“He tried to stand above the law in this valley,” Hollister told her. “He wanted to stop progress--said there shouldn’t be any dam to reclaim the Flat Tops for settlers. Merrick will rebuild it. The land will be watered. Your ranch will be good as ever in three months. And he’ll be buried and forgotten.” “And poor Don Black?” she whispered. “Poor Don, who never had a chance in this world, or, if he had one, muddled it so badly?” He could only hope that Don had gone to a better-ordered world where circumstances did not dominate good intentions. Betty’s sense of tragedy lingered just now no longer than a cinema picture. The life urge in her clamored for expression. No world could be a sad one with her and Tug in it. “Shall I go in and tell your father now?” the young man asked. “Soon.” She made a rustling little motion toward him and found herself in his arms. “Isn’t it splendid, boy? To-day’s the best ever, and to-morrow will be better than to-day--oh, heaps better--and after that all the years forever and ever.” He looked into the deep lustrous eyes of his straight slim girl. What a wife she would be! How eager and provocative, this white flame of youth so simple and so complex! Her happiness now would be in his hands. The responsibility awed him, filled him with a sense of solemnity. “Forever is a long time,” he said, smiling, and quoted a stanza of magazine verse they had lately read together. It began, “How far will you go with me, my love?” Close-held in his arms, Betty answered without a moment of hesitation. “She smiled at the stile with a sweet disdain; She scoffed at the bridge and the great oak tree; And looked me full in the eyes and said: ‘I will go to the end of the lane with thee.’” The door of the inner room opened and Clint stood on the threshold. “Hello!” he said, surprised. Betty disengaged herself, blushing. “He’s decided to take me after all, Dad,” she said demurely. “Hmp! Has he? Kinda looks that way.” Clint gripped Hollister’s hand till it hurt. It was the best he could do just now to show the gratitude he felt for what this man had done. “That’s not quite the way I put it, sir,” Tug said. “Doesn’t matter how you put it, boy. It’ll be her say-so from now on. Don’t I know her? Hasn’t she bossed me scandalous since she was knee-high to a gosling?” “Now, Dad, you’re giving me a bad name,” Betty protested, hugging her father. “If he ain’t man enough to stand some bossing, he’d better quit right now before he says, ‘I do.’” “_He_ likes being bossed, Dad,” Betty announced, and the imps of deviltry were kicking up their heels in her eyes. “Don’t you, Tug?” Hollister looked at the girl and smiled. “I’ll say I do,” he admitted. THE END _There’s More to Follow!_