“Are you unhurt, Aline?” cried the newcomer. And when he saw she was, he added: “Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy endureth forever. He saved them for His name’s sake, that He might make His mighty power to be known.” At sound of the voice they turned and saw the man hurrying toward them. He was tall, gray, and seventy, of massive frame and gaunt, still straight and vigorous, with the hooked nose and piercing eyes of a hawk. At first glance he looked always the bird of prey, but at the next as invariably the wolf, an effect produced by the salient reaching jaw and the glint of white teeth bared for a lip smile. Just now he was touched to a rare emotion. His hands trembled and an expression of shaken thankfulness rested in his face. Aline, still with Ridgway’s strong arms about her, slowly came back to the inexorable facts of life. “You—here?” “As soon as we could get through—and thank God in time.” “I would have died, except for—” This brought her immediately to an introduction, and after she had quietly released herself the man who had saved her heard himself being formally presented: “Mr. Ridgway, I want you to meet my husband, Mr. Harley.” Ridgway turned to Simon Harley a face of hammered steel and bowed, putting his hands deliberately behind his back. “I’ve been expecting you at Mesa, Mr. Harley,” he said rigidly. “I’ll be glad to have the pleasure of welcoming you there.” The great financier was wondering where he had heard the man’s name before, but he only said gravely: “You have a claim on me I can never forget, Mr. Ridgway.” Scornfully the other disdained this proffer. “Not at all. You owe me nothing, Mr. Harley—absolutely nothing. What I have done I have done for her. It is between her and me.” At this moment the mind of Harley fitted the name Ridgway to its niche in his brain. So this was the audacious filibuster who had dared to fire on the trust flag, the man he had come West to ruin and to humble. “I think you will have to include me, Mr. Ridgway,” he said suavely. “What is done for my wife is done, also, for me.” CHAPTER VI. ON THE SNOW-TRAIL Aline had passed into the house, moved by an instinct which shrank from publicity in the inevitable personal meeting between her and her husband. Now, Harley, with the cavalier nod of dismissal, which only a multimillionaire can afford, followed her and closed the door. A passionate rush of blood swept Ridgway’s face. He saw red as he stood there with eyes burning into that door which had been shut in his face. The nails of his clenched fingers bit into his palms, and his muscles gathered themselves tensely. He had been cast aside, barred from the woman he loved by this septuagenarian, as carelessly as if he had no claim.