He was not one moment too soon, for as his arm encircled Constance's waist, her horse went floundering down to a broken neck on the rocks thirty feet below. Even then for a few moments the issue was in doubt; Mrs. Brevoort was an exceedingly well-nurtured young woman, and one hundred and forty pounds of limp humanity is difficult to sustain with one arm while on the back of a horse struggling to retain his footing on the treacherous edge of a loose-earth precipice. But that arm had the strength of a steel bar, and its possessor was the best horseman in a land where all men rode for a living. Inside of ten seconds he was dismounting in safety, still holding the fainting woman with that one clasping arm. As he touched the ground he placed the other arm around her supportingly, her weight for the first time telling on him. On his snatching her out of the saddle she had instinctively thrown her arms about his neck, and they were still there; her head lay drooped upon his shoulder and her loosened hair, whipping in the fresh breeze, was stinging his cheek and blinding his eyes as Grace rode up and flung herself from the saddle. There was a suggestiveness in the pose of the two that went to her heart with a pang: they looked so lover-like, this man with his arms about the clinging woman. For five long months she had been schooling her heart to resignation in the conviction that they would never meet in the flesh again, and here he had come back to her--with another woman in his arms. In that moment she hated Constance Brevoort with all the fervor of her strong young aching heart. For as she stood there, torn by passion and pulsating with joy at the sight of him whom she had deemed lost to her forever, she saw the black eyes cautiously open and close again, the rose-red lips curve in a peculiar smile, and the white arms tighten about Douglass's neck. In the first fury of her jealous rage she could have killed them both without compunction, but pride came to her rescue and as he gently laid his burden down in the deep grass, reason reasserted itself. Taking Constance's head in her lap, she said curtly: "Get some water at once! There is plenty in the arroyo." He was back in a half minute with his inverted sombrero full of the tepid fluid which Grace rather unceremoniously poured over Mrs. Brevoort's face and neck, sneering cynically at the well-simulated gasp of returning consciousness that rewarded her efforts. At the second douche Mrs. Brevoort's eyes opened a bit hastily; the water was a trifle turbid as well as tepid, and Constance doubted the benefits of that alkaline lotion on her zealously-preserved complexion. Grace smiled grimly and emptying the remainder of the water out of his sombrero handed it to him with exaggerated thankfulness.