“Diane, your father’s—­chief of this—­gang that I came to break up.”

“My God, hear him!  How dare you—­Oh, Vaughn, poor, poor boy, you’re out of your mind!  Sally, Russ, what shall we do?  He’s worse.  He’s saying the most dreadful things!  I—­I can’t bear to hear him!”

Steele heaved a sigh and closed his eyes.  I walked away with Sally, led her to and fro in a shady aisle beyond the rocks, and tried to comfort her as best I could.  After a while, when we returned to the glade, Miss Sampson had considerable color in her cheeks, and Steele was leaning against the rock, grave and sad.  I saw that he had recovered and he had reached the critical point.  “Hello, Russ,” he said.  “Sprung a surprise on me, didn’t you?  Miss Sampson says I’ve been a little flighty while she bandaged me up.  I hope I wasn’t bad.  I certainly feel better now.  I seem to—­to have dreamed.”

Miss Sampson flushed at his concluding words.  Then silence ensued.  I could not think of anything to say and Sally was dumb.  “You all seem very strange,” said Miss Sampson.

When Steele’s face turned gray to his lips I knew the moment had come.  “No doubt.  We all feel so deeply for you,” he said.

“Me?  Why?”

“Because the truth must no longer be concealed.”

It was her turn to blanch, and her eyes, strained, dark as night, flashed from one of us to the other.

“The truth!  Tell it then.”  She had more courage than any of us.

“Miss Sampson, your father is the leader of this gang of rustlers I have been tracing.  Your cousin George Wright, is his right-hand man.”

Miss Sampson heard, but she did not believe.

“Tell her, Russ,” Steele added huskily, turning away.  Wildly she whirled to me.  I would have given anything to have been able to lie to her.  As it was I could not speak.  But she read the truth in my face.  And she collapsed as if she had been shot.  I caught her and laid her on the grass.  Sally, murmuring and crying, worked over her.  I helped.  But Steele stood aloof, dark and silent, as if he hoped she would never return to consciousness.

When she did come to, and began to cry, to moan, to talk frantically, Steele staggered away, while Sally and I made futile efforts to calm her.  All we could do was to prevent her doing herself violence.  Presently, when her fury of emotion subsided, and she began to show a hopeless stricken shame, I left Sally with her and went off a little way myself.  How long I remained absent I had no idea, but it was no inconsiderable length of time.  Upon my return, to my surprise and relief, Miss Sampson had recovered her composure, or at least, self-control.  She stood leaning against the rock where Steele had been, and at this moment, beyond any doubt, she was supremely more beautiful than I had ever seen her.  She was white, tragic, wonderful.  “Where is Mr. Steele?” she asked.  Her tone and her look did not seem at all suggestive of the mood I expected to find her in—­one of beseeching agony, of passionate appeal to Steele not to ruin her father.