He had believed Gledware glad of the respite. That he should accept the alternative seemed reasonable. There was a choice only between death and poverty--and Gledware wished to live so desperately--so basely! The chief cared little for life; still, he would unhesitatingly have preferred the most meager existence to a knife in his heart; how much more, then, this craven white man. But the plan had failed because Gledware did not believe death was the other alternative. Never in the remotest way had it occurred to the avenger that Gledware could be spared should he prove false to his oath. Red Feather was less a man with passions than a cold relentless fate. This fate would surely overcome the helpless wretch, should he cling to his riches. As Red Feather skimmed the water with long sweeps of his oars, never looking back, the voices of his passengers came to his ears without meaning. He was thinking of the last few days and how this morning's ride was their fitting sequel. The early sunbeams were full on him as he tilted back his head, but they showed no emotion on his face, hard-set and dully red in the clear radiance. Crouching near the summer-house at Gledware's place, he had overheard Red Kimball boast to bring Gledware the pearl and onyx pin. Then had shot through his darkened mind the suspicion that Gledware meant to escape the one condition on which his life was to be spared. With simple cunning he had left the pin where the outlaw must find it; his own death would be taken for granted--what then? What then? This ride in the boat. Gledware had made his choice; he had clung to his possessions--and now Death held the oars. He was scarcely past middle age. He might have lived so long, he who so loved to live! But no, he had chosen to be rich--and to die. When Red Feather brought his mind back to the present, Gledware was describing to Annabel a ranch in California for which he had traded the house near Independence. He would take her far away; he would build a house thus and thus--room so; terraces here; marble pillars.... Annabel listened gravely, silently, her face all the paler for the sunlight flashing over it, for the mimic sun on the waves glancing up into her pensive eyes. Somehow, the sunshine, the ripple of the water, seemed to form no part of her life, belonged rather, to Edgerton Compton rowing in solitude against the sky. Those naked trees, bare brown hills and ledges of huge stones seemed her world-boundaries, kin to her, claiming her-- But there was California ... and the splendid house to be built....