The picture was indeed an excellent one.  It represented Ramerrez in the gorgeous dress of a caballero—­and the outlaw was a fine specimen of that spectacular class of men.  But Rance studied the photograph only long enough to be sure that no mistake was possible.  With a quick movement he put it away in his pocket and looked long and hard at the figure of the degraded woman standing before him and revelling in her treachery.  In that time he forgot that anyone had ever entertained a kind thought about her; he forgot that she once was respected as well as admired; he was conscious only of regarding her with a far deeper disgust and repugnance than he held towards others much her inferior in birth and education.  But, presently, his face grew a shade whiter, if that were possible, and he cursed himself for not having thought of the danger to which the Girl might even now be exposed.  In less than a minute, therefore, both men stood ready for the work before them.  But on the threshold just before going out into the fierce storm that had burst during the last few minutes, he paused and called back: 

“You Mexican devil!  If any harm comes to the Girl, I’ll strangle you with my own hands!” And not waiting to hear the woman’s mocking laughter he passed out, followed by Ashby, into the storm.

X.

In the still black night and with no guide other than the dimly-lighted lantern which she carried, the Girl had started for home—­a bit of shelter in the middle of a great silence, a little fortress in the wilderness, as it were, with its barred doors and windows—­on the top of Cloudy Mountain.  To be sure, it was not the first time that she had followed the trail alone:  Day and night, night and day, for as long, almost, as she could remember, she had been doing it; indeed, she had watched the alders, oaks and dwarf pines, that bordered the trail, grow year by year as she herself had grown, until now the whispering of the mountain’s night winds spoke a language as familiar as her own; but never before had she climbed up into the clean, wide, free sweep of this unbounded horizon, the very air untainted and limitless as the sky itself, with so keen and uncloying a pleasure.  But there was a new significance attached to her home-coming to-night:  was she not to entertain there her first real visitor?

At the threshold of her cabin the Girl, her cheeks aglow and eyes as bright, almost, as the red cape that enveloped her lithe, girlish figure, paused, and swinging her lantern high above her head so that its light was reflected in the room, she endeavoured to imagine what would be the impression that a stranger would receive coming suddenly upon these surroundings.

And well might she have paused, for no eye ever rested upon a more conglomerate ensemble!  Yet, withal, there was a certain attractiveness about this log-built, low, square room, half-papered with gaudy paper—­the supply, evidently, having fallen short,—­that was as unexpected as it was unusual.