Harley saw the "King" flinch, but the finger did not leave the trigger. "You took from me when I wasn't looking all that I love best, and I'll take from you all I can." The red face of "King" Plummer suddenly turned gray, and Harley saw it, but he did not see what caused it. There was the light, swift tread of footsteps behind him, a warm breath upon his face, and then Sylvia's arms were around his neck and she was upon his breast. "Shoot if you want to," she said to the "King," "but your bullet will strike me first." Her eyes, for the first time in her life, sparkled defiance at him, and their gaze stabbed the "King" to the heart. Harley strove to put her aside, but she clung to him with strong, young arms. The "King's" face, pale before, now became white. It was, perhaps, the first time in his life that all the blood had left it, and it showed the power of this new and sudden emotion. "King" Plummer, in a flash, saw many things. The finger that lay upon the trigger trembled, and then, with a cry of fear, this man who feared no other man threw his pistol to the earth. "My God, Sylvia!" he exclaimed. "What do you think I am?" "Not a murderer!" "No, I am not; but I came very near to being one."' He looked at the two, in each other's arms as it were, and turned away, leaving the pistol upon the ground. "King" Plummer had seen enough for one day. They watched him until the broad back passed over a swell and was lost. Then Sylvia, blushing, remembered, and took her arms from Harley's neck. "You have saved my life," said Harley. "I do not think that he would have fired." "You have saved it, anyhow. Now it is yours, and you must take it. He cannot claim you after this." The blush became brilliant. "He has not given me up. He has not said so." "But he will give you up. He shall. You are mine now. Come!" He took her unresisting hand in his, and again they walked side by side, so close that the strong wind once more brushed the little ringlet against his cheek. It is a peculiarity of Grafton that the low swells around it, rolling away towards the mountains, look just alike everywhere. One has to be a resident, and an old-timer at that, to be able to tell one from another. Harley and Sylvia, hand-in-hand, had little thought of such things as these, nor were they anxious to reach Grafton quickly; yet the time when they must be there would come, and Harley at last interrupted a pleasanter occupation by exclaiming: "Why, where is Grafton? We should have reached it long ago!" Sylvia saw only the low swells, rolling away, one after the other; there was no glimpse of a house, no smoke on the horizon to tell where the village had hid itself so suddenly. Around them were the low ridges, and afar the circle of blue mountains. Save for themselves, it seemed a lone and desolate world. Sylvia became white; she knew their situation better than Harley. "We have lost the town! We mistook the direction!" she said.