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Jane felt swayed by a strength that far exceeded her own In a clash of wills with this o to the wall If she were to influence hih womanly allurement There was that about Lassiter which commanded her respect She had abhorred his name; face to face with hiestion, his foreshadowing of so that she was to mean to him, pierced deep into her mind She believed fate had thrown in her way the lover or husband of Milly Erne She believed that through her an evil ht be reclaimed His allusion to what he called her blindness terrified her Such a ht unleash the bitter, fatal mood she sensed in him At any cost she must placate this man; she knew the die was cast, and that if Lassiter did not soften to a worace and beauty and wiles, then it would be because she could not make him

"I reckon you'll hear no more such talk from me," Lassiter went on, presently "Now, Miss Jane, I rode in to tell you that your herd of white steers is down on the slope behind thehty interestin' to you, if you could see it Have you a field-glass?"

"Yes, I have two glasses I'll get them and ride out with you

Wait, Lassiter, please," she said, and hurried within Sending word to Jerd to saddle Black Star and fetch hied to the riding-clothes she always donned when going into the sage In this male attire her mirror showed her a jaunty, handsome rider If she expected some little need of admiration froentle smile that she liked, which made of him another person, slowly overspread his face

"If I didn't take you for a boy!" he exclaimed "It's powerful queer what difference clothes nity, like when the other night you was all in white but in this rig--"

Black Star ca Jerd half off his feet, and he whistled at Lassiter's black But at sight of Jane all his defiant lines seemed to soften, and with tosses of his beautiful head he whipped his bridle

"Down, Black Star, down," said Jane

He dropped his head, and, slowly lengthening, he bent one foreleg, then the other, and sank to his knees Jane slipped her left foot in the stirrup, swung lightly into the saddle, and Black Star rose with a ringing stah the grove and like the wind he broke when he saw the sage Jane let hi on the open trail, and then she coaxed hi in catching up, and presently they were riding side by side It reminded her how she used to ride with Venters Where was he now? She gazed far down the slope to the curved purple lines of Deception Pass and involuntarily shut her eyes with a tre stir of nameless fear