“It’s Squint Taylor, boys! Squint Taylor! Stand back an’ let ol’ Squint take a hand in this here deal!” There was a wild, concerted screech of joy. It rose like the shrieking of a gale; it broke against the buildings that fringed the street; it echoed and reechoed with terrific resonance back and forth over the heads of the men in the crowd. It penetrated into the cozy room of a private dwelling, where sat a girl who started at the sound and sat erect, her face paling, her eyes, glowing with a light that made the motherly looking woman say to her, softly: “Ah, then you _do_ believe in him, my dear!” * * * * * It was when the noise and the tumult had subsided that Taylor went to her. For he had been told where he might find her by men who smiled sympathetically at his back as he walked down the street toward the private dwelling. She was at the door as soon as he, for she had been watching from one of the front windows, and had seen him come toward the house. And when the motherly looking woman saw them in each other’s arms, the moon and the light from within the house revealing them to her, and to the men in the crowd who watched from the street, she smiled gently. What the two said to each other will never be known, for their words were drowned in the cheer that rose from hoarse-voiced men who knew that words are sometimes futile and unnecessary. CHAPTER XXXV—TRIUMPH AT LAST A month later, Taylor walked to the front door of the Arrow ranchhouse and stood on the threshold looking out over the great sweep of green-brown plain that reached eastward to Dawes. A change had come over Taylor. His eyes had a gentler light in them—as though they had seen things that had taken the edge off his sterner side; and there was an atmosphere about him that created the impression that his thoughts were at this moment far from violence. “Mr. Taylor!” said a voice behind him—from the front room. There had been an undoubted accent on the “Mr.” And the voice was one that Taylor knew well; the sound of it deepened the gentle gleam in his eyes. “Mrs. Taylor,” he answered, imparting to the “Mrs.” exactly the emphasis the voice had placed on the other. There was a laugh behind him, and then the voice again, slightly reproachful: “Oh, that sounds so _awfully_ formal, Squint!” “Well,” he said, “you started it.” “I like ‘Squint’ better,” said the voice. “I’m hoping you keep on liking Squint all the days of your life,” he returned. “I was speaking of names,” declared the voice. “Doan’ yo’ let her fool yo’, Mr. Squint!” came another voice, “fo’ she think a heap mo’ of you than she think of yo’ name!” “Martha!” said the first voice in laughing reproof, “I vow I shall send you away some day!” And then there was a clumping step on the floor, and Martha’s voice reached the door as she went out of the house through the kitchen: