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coiant onceout; if you make any attempt to leave this

room within the next fiveYou stacked cards twice to-night, but the last tiame"

He held aside the heavy curtains with his left hand and backed slowly

out facing the olowered at him from the floor, an impotent

curse upon his lips Then the red drapery fell

While the shadows of the long night still hung over the valley, Naida,

tossing restlessly upon her strange bed within the humble yellow house

at the fork of the trails, was aroused to wakefulness by the pounding

of a horse's hoofs on the plank bridge spanning the creek She drew

aside the curtain and looked out, shading her eyes to see clearer

through the poor glass All she perceived was a soe

when the rider swept rapidly past, horse and ain, this tilare of day,

and to the re a new life As she lay

there thinking, her eyes troubled but tearless, far away on the

sun-kissed uplands Ha to exhibit signs of weariness Bent slightly over the saddle

po blurred and

distant, he rode steadily on, the onlyobject amid all that

wide, desolate landscape