There was certainly doubt in his tone, and surprise, too; and he came to the side of the cart and gazed up into the awful face drooping forward over the outstretched arm to further convince himself. What he beheld caused him to click his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It was his only means of giving expression to the wave of horror that swept over him. With a leap he sprang into the seat, and began releasing the knotted reins from the stiffened arm. So tight had the knots been drawn that it took some moments. Then he turned, and with difficulty removed the rawhide from about the middle of the huddled figure. Then he hailed some of the onlookers. "Ho, you, Joe! You, too, Lalor, an' Ned! Stand by, lads, an' bear a hand," he cried authoritatively. "Guess I'll pass it out." Then he stood up, staring down at the stiffened body; and wonder looked out of his puzzled eyes. "Gee! if it ain't Wild Bill the gambler, an'--an' he must ha' bin dead nigh six hours." CHAPTER XXXII A MAN'S LOVE It was with strangely mixed feelings that Scipio drove Minky's old mule down the shelving trail leading into the secret valley where stood James' ranch-house. The recollection of his first visit to the place was a sort of nightmare which clung desperately in the back cells of memory. The dreadful incidents leading up to it and surrounding it could never be forgotten. Every detail of his headlong journey in quest of the man who had wronged him, every detail of his terrible discomfiture, would cling in his memory so long as he had life. But, in spite of memory, in spite of his wrongs, his heart-burnings, the desolation of the past weeks, his heart rose buoyantly as he came within sight of the place in which he still persisted in telling himself that his Jessie was held a prisoner against her will. That was his nature. No optimism was too big for him. No trouble was so great that hope could altogether be crushed out of his heart. He looked out over the splendid valley extending for miles on either hand of him, and somehow he was glad. Somehow the glorious sunlight, so softened by the shadowed forest which covered the hillsides, so gentle beneath the crowding hills which troughed in the bed of waving grass, sent his simple spirit soaring to heights of anticipatory delight which, a few days back, had seemed beyond his reach. At that moment, in spite of all that had gone before, the place was very, very beautiful to him, life was wonderful, his very existence was a joy. For was not Jessie waiting for him beyond, in that ranch-house? Was not she waiting for his coming, that she might return with him to their home? Was she not presently to be seated beside him upon the rickety old seat of Minky's buckboard? And his final thought caused him to glance regretfully down at the frayed cushion, wishing cordially that he could have afforded her greater comfort.