He saw the sun rising above the rim of hills that surrounded the flat; he climbed to the rock upon which he had sat--with her--watching the shadows retreat to the mountains, watching the sun stream down into the clearing and upon the Radford cabin. But there was no longer beauty in the picture--for him. Hereafter he would return to that life that he had led of old; the old hard life that he had known before his brief romance had given him a fleeting glimpse of what might have been. Many times, when his hopes had been high, he had felt a chilling fear that he would never be able to reach the pinnacle of promise; that in the end fate would place before him a barrier--the barrier in the shape of his contract with Stafford, that he had regretted many times. Mary Radford would never believe his protest that he had not been hired to kill her brother. Fate, in the shape of Leviatt, had forestalled him there. Many times, when she had questioned him regarding the hero in her story, he had been on the point of taking her into his confidence as to the reason of his presence at the Two Diamond, but he had always put it off, hoping that things would be righted in the end and that he would be able to prove to her the honesty of his intentions. But now that time was past. Whatever happened now she would believe him the creature that she despised--that all men despised; the man who strikes in the dark. This, then, was to be the end. He could not say that he had been entirely blameless. He should have told her. But it was not the end that he was now contemplating. There could be no end until there had been an accounting between him and Leviatt. Perhaps the men who had shot Ben Radford in the back would never be known. He had his suspicions, but they availed nothing. In the light of present circumstances Miss Radford would never hold him guiltless. Until near noon he sat on the rock on the crest of the hill, the lines of his face growing more grim, his anger slowly giving way to the satisfying calmness that comes when the mind has reached a conclusion. There would be a final scene with Leviatt, and then---- He rose from the rock, made his way deliberately down the hillside, mounted his pony, and struck the trail leading to the Two Diamond ranchhouse.