In the first flush of the dawn Howard rode away toward San Juan.  He turned in the saddle and looked back toward the Last Ridge country.  He fancied that he could make out the Longstreet cabin even when he knew that his lover’s desire was tricking his sense.  He thought of Helen; she would be sleeping now.  He would not see her for several days.  He thought of John Carr; Carr would see her every day until he was forced to go East.  Carr had not confided in him when he expected to leave.  His eyes left the uplands lingeringly and wandered across the sweeping fields of Desert Valley.  He straightened in the saddle and his lungs filled and expanded.  The valley was his, his to work for, to struggle and plan for, to make over as he would have it—­to hold for Helen.  For Helen loved it no less than he loved it.  And he loved Helen.

‘. . .  One should be loyal to one’s friends.’  He held to that stoutly, insistent and stubborn to play his part.  Something had come over him and Carr, or between them; but none the less he obstinately sought to refuse to harbour thoughts which came again and again and which always angered him with himself.  There was the suspicion:  ’Carr was unfair in seeking to take Helen and her father away with him to the East.’  He told himself that that was Carr’s right if Carr held it so.  There came the accusation:  ‘Carr had been hard on him last night.’  He told himself that it was easily granted that they had misunderstood each other when, long ago, they had arranged for the payments; further, that no doubt Carr, too, was hard up for cash.  The thought suggested itself:  ’Carr had no right to berate him for allowing Sanchia to ride to the Longstreet cabin.’  Carr had spoken quickly, unthinkingly, and they all were under stress.  He would play fair and give a man his due—­and his thoughts switched to Helen and Carr was forgotten and, with a half-smile on his lips, he rode on through the brightening morning, dreaming of the ranch that should be when Helen came with him to ride and their hands found each other and she whispered:  ’I love it and—­it is ours!’

John Engle, the banker of San Juan, was something more than a banker.  Not only was he a fine, upstanding, broad-minded man; he was a man, no longer in the first flush of youth, who had made himself what he was and who from forty-five vividly recalled twenty-five.  He had learned caution, but he had known what it was to plunge head-first into deep waters.  That now, a man established, he no longer had to take long chances, was due largely to the successes met in long chances taken when all of life lay before him, inviting.  When now Alan Howard came to him in his office at the bank and put his case before him straightforwardly and without evasion or reservation, he came to the one man in the world who because of his position and his character could best help him.

‘Take it slow, Alan,’ said Engle quietly.  ’I can give you the whole day, if necessary.  I’ve got to know just where you stand and just which way you are headed before I can get anywhere.’