“You mean to hide me away among the crags and clouds?” replied Madeline, with a laugh.

“Well, it’d amount to that.  Your friends need not know.  Perhaps in a few weeks this spell of trouble on the border will be over till fall.”

“You say it’s a hard climb up to this place?”

“It surely is.  Your friends will get the real thing if they make that trip.”

“That suits me.  Helen especially wants something to happen.  And they are all crazy for excitement.”

“They’d get it up there.  Bad trails, canyons to head, steep climbs, wind-storms, thunder and lightning, rain, mountain-lions and wildcats.”

“Very well, I am decided.  Stewart, of course you will take charge?  I don’t believe I—­Stewart, isn’t there something more you could tell me—­why you think, why you know my own personal liberty is in peril?”

“Yes.  But do not ask me what it is.  If I hadn’t been a rebel soldier I would never have known.”

“If you had not been a rebel soldier, where would Madeline Hammond be now?” she asked, earnestly.

He made no reply.

“Stewart,” she continued, with warm impulse, “you once mentioned a debt you owed me—­” And seeing his dark face pale, she wavered, then went on.  “It is paid.”

“No, no,” he answered, huskily.

“Yes.  I will not have it otherwise.”

“No.  That never can be paid.”

Madeline held out her hand.

“It is paid, I tell you,” she repeated.

Suddenly he drew back from the outstretched white hand that seemed to fascinate him.

“I’d kill a man to touch your hand.  But I won’t touch it on the terms you offer.”

His unexpected passion disconcerted her.

“Stewart, no man ever before refused to shake hands with me, for any reason.  It—­it is scarcely flattering,” she said, with a little laugh.  “Why won’t you?  Because you think I offer it as mistress to servant—­rancher to cowboy?”

“No.”

“Then why?  The debt you owed me is paid.  I cancel it.  So why not shake hands upon it, as men do?”

“I won’t.  That’s all.”

“I fear you are ungracious, whatever your reason,” she replied.  “Still, I may offer it again some day.  Good night.”

He said good night and turned.  Madeline wonderingly watched him go down the path with his hand on the black horse’s neck.

She went in to rest a little before dressing for dinner, and, being fatigued from the day’s riding and excitement, she fell asleep.  When she awoke it was twilight.  She wondered why her Mexican maid had not come to her, and she rang the bell.  The maid did not put in an appearance, nor was there any answer to the ring.  The house seemed unusually quiet.  It was a brooding silence, which presently broke to the sound of footsteps on the porch.  Madeline recognized Stillwell’s tread, though it appeared to be light for him.  Then she heard him call softly in at the open door of her office.  The suggestion of caution in his voice suited the strangeness of his walk.  With a boding sense of trouble she hurried through the rooms.  He was standing outside her office door.