Craig himself did not appear, either at the reading or the execution.  Instead a dapper city attorney with a sarcastic tongue and an isolated manner was present to conserve his interests; and, satisfied on that score, and ere the supply of Havanas in a beautifully embossed leather case was exhausted, in fact, to quote his own words, “as quickly as a kind Providence would permit,” he vanished into the unknown from whence he came.  Following, on the next train, came a big-voiced, red-bearded Irishman who proclaimed himself the new foreman and immediately took possession.  Simultaneously there disappeared from the scene the Buffalo Butte ranch and the brand by which it had been known; and in its place upon the flank of every live thing controlled, stared forth a C locked to a C (C-C):  the heraldry of the new master, Clayton Craig.

Likewise the long-planned wedding journey had taken place and become a memory.  Into the silent places they went, this new-made man and wife—­and no one was present at the departure to bid them adieu.  Back from the land of nothingness they came—­and again no one was at hand to welcome their return.  In but one respect did the accomplishment of that plan alter from the prearranged; and that one item was the consideration of time.  They did not stay away until winter, as the girl had announced.  Starting in November, they did not complete the month.  Nor did they stay for more than a day in any one spot.  Like the curse of the Wandering Jew, a newborn restlessness in the girl kept calling “On, on.”  Battle against it as she might, she was powerless under its dominance.  She knew not from whence had come the change, nor why; but that in the last weeks she had altered fundamentally, unbelievably, she could not question.  The very first night out, ere they had slept, she had begun to talk of change on the morrow.  The next day it was the same—­and the next.  When they were moving the morbid restlessness gradually wore away; for the time being she became her old careless-happy self; and in sympathy her companion opened as a flower to the sun.  Then would come a pause; and the morbid, dogging spirit of unrest would close upon her anew.  Thus day by day passed until a week had gone by.  Then one morning when camp was struck, instead of advancing farther, the man had faced back the way they had come.  He made no comment, nor did she.  Neither then nor in days that followed did he once allude to the reason that had caused the change of plan.  When the girl was gay, he was gay likewise.  When she lapsed listlessly into the slough of silence and despond, he went on precisely as though unconscious of a change.  His acting, for acting it was, even the girl could not but realise at that time, was masterly.  What he was thinking no human being ever knew, no human being could ever know; for he never gave the semblance of a hint.  Probably not since man and woman began under the sanction of law and of clergy to mate, had there been such