A thousand riddles and, as always, no answer to the riddles which spring from eternity. Only the merry voice of the purling creek to talk back to her, that and the rustling whisper ebbing and flowing through the pine tops. The stream, like a companionable human voice, called to her insistently. She rose and went down to it and stooped to drink; she bathed her hands and arms and face. How lonely it was here! She cast a quick glance up-stream; long ago Standing, with his big dog at his heels, had passed out of sight. And he had given her gage of promise for promise given ... he would send his shouting voice ahead of him before he came back.... So she bathed fearlessly, watched only by the solitudes, guarded by their sombre depths; she plunged, with a little shivery gasp, into the deep, cool pool below the slithering waterfall; the water slipped, gleaming like a bejewelled film over her pure-white body, making it rosy when she emerged, like rose petals.... She dressed in furious haste, all ablush and yet steeped in a confident knowledge that no eye, save the bright eye of a curious brown bird, had seen. She felt new-born; refreshed beyond belief. She ran back up the bank and sat down in the very spot where she had dropped first when Standing had left her. She began, always hurrying, to comb out her hair with her fingers. Sitting there in the open she let it sun.... She rested. She drank deep, thankfully, of the hour. To be alone, to be secure in the moment, to have no danger pressing down upon her, above all to have no mind save her own dictating to her. It was glorious and life was good and glad and golden, infinitely worth the living. So passed an hour. It was so quiet here; so unutterably lonely. Only the voice of the creek and the million-tongued murmuring pines. Her swift thoughts raced ten thousand ways. They touched upon Big Pine; on Taggart; Mexicali Joe; a gold-mine still for men to find; Maria, the Indian girl whom Deveril had kissed; Deveril himself; that one-legged man who rode horseback and carried forth the word and the law of his master; Thor, a dog; Bruce Standing. Most of all, Bruce Standing. She wondered where he was, what doing? Caring for his own wounds? Lying on his back, his white face turned up, his eyes shut, tight shut? And he loved her? _Bruce Standing loved her, Lynette?_ Was that true? What was love? Whence came love? For what purpose? What did it do to the hearts and souls and bodies of men ... and girls? Was love for her? She had never experienced it, not true, abiding love. Did Babe Deveril.... Another hour. Shadows slowly shifting, moving like gigantic hands of eternal clocks. Time passing, time that answers all questions, man's and maid's, saint's and sinner's. She stirred uneasily and sat up. She looked at the pine tops and, beyond them, at the sun. It was almost noon! Come noon.... What then? Come high noon before Bruce Standing, and she was free! Released from her promise, all bonds snapped! Free!