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Manifestly he could not believe in her strange transformation Memory of her wild and passionate denunciation of him and his kind must have seared even his calloused soul But the ruthless nature of him had not weakened nor softened in the least as to his intentions This weather-vane veering of hers bewildered him, obsessed him with its possibilities He had the look of a man as divided between love of her and hate, whose love demanded a return, but whose hate required a proof of her abasenorind her beauty under his heel, but he could not soften to this feminine inscrutableness

And whatever was the truth of Ellen Jorth in this ence, beyond even the love of Jean Isbel, it was so that held the balance of mastery She read Colter's mind She dropped the torn blouse from her hand and stood there, unasha, eyes black as night and full of hell, her face white, tragic, terrible, yet strangely lovely

"Takeone white arm toward him, then the other

Colter, even as she moved, had leaped with inarticulate cry and radiant face to meet her embrace But it seemed, just as her left arm flashed up toward his neck, that he saw her bloody hand and wrist Strange how that checked his ardor--threw up his lean head like that striking bird of prey

"Blood! What the hell!" he ejaculated, and in one sweep he grasped her "How'd yu do that? Are y'u cut?Hold still"

Ellen could not release her hand

"I scratched myself," she said

"Where? All that blood!" And suddenly he flung her hand back with fierce gesture, and the glea flames They pierced her--read the secret falsity of her Slowly he stepped backward, guardedly his hand lance circled and swept the interior of the cabin As if he had the nose of a hound and sight to follow scent, his eyes bent to the dust of the ground before the door He quivered, grew rigid as stone, and then h a microscope in the dust--farther to the left--to the foot of the ladder--and up one step--another--a third--all the way up to the loft Then he whipped out his gun and wheeled to face the girl