Her voice broke and she buried her face in her hands, her form convulsed by a paroxysm of tears. Then to her numbed senses came vaguely another remembrance of the buried past, frantic hoof-beats. For a second she cowered as she had done on that awful day, then she turned with a sigh of relief to welcome, this time, the end of all things. Through her tear-blinded eyes she saw the blue stallion sweeping down upon her but she never flinched. God was going to be kind after all. But even as the lean head ranged beside her, the foam splattering on her bosom as she involuntarily covered her eyes with her hands, from out of Chaos came a cry: "Gracie, forgive--!" Slowly she dropped her hands and stared incredulously. What was this wonder that had come to her in the moment of death? She tottered unsteadily, swaying to and fro like a wind-tossed leaf. As in a fog she saw him there with arms extended, waiting to carry her across the dark ford. Then, by God's mercy, her brain cleared and she knew. * * * * * At the Court of Europe's greatest prince men strive with each other doing honor to the beautiful wife of the new American Ambassador, Anselm Brevoort. "As good as she is beautiful, God bless her!" was Frederick, Lord Chillingham's enthusiastic eulogy one night when her name was mentioned at the United, and his comrades silently drank her health standing. "As pure and as cold as the stars above, God bless her!" sighs the silver-haired Ambassador, looking wistfully at her where she sits with her protege, little Eulalie Blount, in her lap, patiently explaining that the tail makes all the difference between O and Q. "I love oo, Tonnie!" lisps the little tot kneeling by her little white bed. And the woman, clasping in her bosom a tiny satin bag containing a common yellow telegraph blank on which are written a few now undecipherable words, looks dry-eyed into the night and wonders. * * * * * In the marshal's office at Gunnison, over their cigars and a big-bellied bottle, Red McVey and Ballard are looking reminiscently at a Mauser hanging on the wall. "I reckon that were thu best jawb yuh evah done, Lew," says the cowboy with much conviction. Ballard, dropping his eyes unaccountably, hesitates long over his selection of a fresh weed. "What the hell else was there to do?" he says gruffly. But the recording angel, looking kindly and indulgently at the honest face, smiles softly and forgets the pen in his hand. For a long time the men smoke in a silence more eloquent than words. Then Ballard shifts the threads in the loom. "That's a great kid that Ken's got, I hear. Think I'll take a pasear over there with you when you go back and look at his points."