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Of Tressa he had so many glowing things to write in his letters to his wife that Helen threatened to rush north in self-defence. Thereupon he crammed one letter from start to finish with Tressa Torrance's praises, and defied Helen to fulfil her threat. In the course of his work the solitary part that intrigued him was the mystery of the Indian.

A second tiny fleck of smoke, and a bullet sank into the logs only two feet on the other side of the doorway. Torrance heaved Tressa back within the shack. And as he came about, a third bullet from the mysterious stranger dug into the log not more than a foot above his head. Torrance did not move he scarcely even thought at that moment.

As the raft slithered in sideways to the bank, a small broncho dashed ashore, followed by four other horses. At a fast lope it led away toward the trees that grew down the distant slope to the river bottom. Torrance awakened then. With livid face he swung the rifle up and fired. Tressa struck at his arm too late. It was a long range, and to such an indifferent marksman a matter of luck.

Tressa came running round the nearest shack, rifle in one hand and a small automatic in the other. She saw the blood on Adrian's collar and made straight for him. For a moment her father frowned jealously.

"Then I'll have to work for nothing," said Conrad serenely. "I'm not working for you or you'd have been paying me four hundred for the last two years, and some one else to look after me." He examined the contractor up and down with frank disgust. "I don't know how any daughter of yours keeps me here." Tressa came to them then and seized a hand of each.

Its foundation was love, the keystone of its arch peace. The blood of a gentle mother had effectually subdued in her the fierce impetuosity of her father as in life the frail little wife had dominated the boisterous husband. Tressa wanted most to be loved. It was food to her self-respect, to her easy and appealing ways, even to the laugh bubbling so readily to her rosy lips.

The Indian's hands fell away. Tressa lifted her father's left arm; blood was dripping from it. "Sit still, daddy. Hold your arm like that till I get the water and bandages there's still hot water, I think. It's only a scratch. Grip your arm there." Torrance, suddenly weak at the sight of his own blood, sank into a chair, staring at the stained sleeve. "Say, Big Chief, you're a good sport.

The covers of the coloured magazines he lifted and let fall, pressed the gaudy cushions that strewed the couch, touched the cheap ornaments Tressa had woven into the picture with happy hand, stared into the home-framed pictures. Over the vase of wild flowers he stooped with a reminiscent smile; and thoughtfully for several minutes he rocked Tressa's own chair.

"We know your full name. Drop the heroics." "No heroics to think of young missus." Koppy turned to Tressa, forced to be an uncomfortable witness of one of the frequent quarrels that never reached an issue. "If she say no danger, Ignace Koppowski satisfied." He bent his big frame with surprising grace. Tressa smiled on the Pole from the upper step.

Also he paused before the indignity of calling in reinforcements to defeat a lot of blundering fools and cowards. Deep within him was the conviction that nothing more was required than his own unerring rifle. Only the matter of those ninety-two rifles and the presence of Tressa Torrance forced him to consider the situation worthy of prolonged thought. He decided to take the night to think it over.