And for answer Judith entered, but a Judith that was strange to them.  There was about her a white radiance that kept the dancers back, and in her eyes something of Mary’s look, as she turned from Calvary.  The dancers still kept the position of the figures, the men with their arms about their partners’ waists, the women stepping forward; they were like the painted figures of dancers in a fresco.  And among them stood Judith, waiting to play her part, waiting to show her world that she could dance and be merry because all was well with her and hers.  But the bronzed sons of the saddle hung back, they who a day before would have quarrelled for the honor of a dance.  They were afraid of her; it would be like dancing with the death angel.  She looked from face to face.  Surely some one would ask her to dance, and her eyes fell on Henderson, returning from the bottled courage in the bunk-room.  Some word was due from him to explain his terror of a moment ago.

“Oh, Miss Judith, I thought you was a ghost when I seen you at the window.”

“A ghost that’s ready to dance.”  She held out her hand to him.  In her gesture there was something of royal command, and Henderson, reading the meaning in her eyes, stepped forward.  Her face, almost a perfect replica of the dead man’s, looked at him.

“I bring you greeting from my brother,” she said.  “He has gone on a long journey.”

Henderson started.  Through the still room ran the murmur, “Rodney’s outwitted them; he’s played a joke on the rope!” And Judith, his dare-devil sister, had come with his greetings to Henderson, leader of the faction against him!  The tide had turned.  The applause that is ever the meed of the winner was hers to command.  The cattle faction were ready to sing the praises of her splendid audacity.  In their hearts they were glad in the thought that Jim had outwitted them.

Miguel’s bow dashed across the strings, and he drew from the little brown fiddle music that again made them merry and glowing.  The magic came back to the dance, the blood leaped again with the merry madness, and they swept to the bowing like leaves when the first faint wail of winter cries in the trees.

Hamilton, standing apart with Kitty Colebrooke, had been a dazed witness of the scene.  With the rest he had watched the entrance of Judith, had been stunned by the change in her appearance, had seen her triumph and heard the rumor of Jim’s escape, and his heart had warmed with the good word.  She had probably managed the plan, and had come to-night, in the joy of her triumph, to hurl in their faces that she had outwitted them.  And she had paid the penalty of her courage—­her face told that.  What a woman she was!  Her heart would pay the penalty to the last throb, and yet she could dance with the merriest of them.  And as she danced she seemed to Peter Hamilton, in her white draperies, like a cloud of whirling snow-flakes drifting across the silence of the desert night.  She was the one woman in all the world for him, though his blind eyes had faced the light for years and had not known it.  He had squandered the strength of his youth in the pursuit of a little wax light, and had not marked the serene shining of the moon.