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?0^?HALACE OF COURAGE jr(ContInued from page 6.) grin, mortification, shame. He had been overcome. He would have been a dead man and by Newbold's hands, If the others had not interfered. Ha almost wished they had let his enemy alone. Well, he had lost everything but a chance for revenge on them all. "She has been alone here with this man in this cabin for a month," he said thickly. "I was willing to take her in spite of that, but?" "He made that damned suggestion before," cried Newbold, his rage returning. "I don't know who you are? ' "My name is Robert Maltl&nd, and I am thiB girl's uncle." "Well, If you were her father, I could only swear?" "It isn't necessary to swear anything," answered Maltl&nd serenely. "I know this child, and I believe I'm beginning to find out this man." "Thank you, Uucle Robert," said Enid gratefully, coming nearer to blm as she spoke. "No man could have done more for me than Mr. Newbold has, and no one could have been mora considerate of me. As for you," she turned to Armstrong, who now slowly got to his feet, "your Insinuations against me are on a par with your charges against the dead woman, beneath contempt." "What did he say about her?' asked old Klrkby. "You know my story?" asked New- J bold. "Ves." "He said that my wife had been unfaithful to me?with him?and that he j had refused to take her back. Great God!" , "And it was true," snarled Arm- strong. T+ nts. a11 If m A ?a..1J a. 4b nag ait mauiauu UUUIU UU [o check Newbold's rush, but in the end .It was old Kirkby who most effectively Aakerposed. ^That's a damned lie," he said quiet* J7 whh his usual drawling voice. 1 "Yon can say so," laughed Arm* strong, "but that doesn't alter the facts." "And I can prove it," answered the old man triumphantly. It was coming, the secret that she had tried to conceal was about to be cjfivealed, thought Enid. She made a "Siovement toward the old man. She opened her mouth to bid him be silent and then stopped. It would be uselees she knew. The determination was no longer hers. The direction of affairs had been withdrawn from her. After all it was better that the unloving wife should be proved faithful, even If her husband's cherished memory of her love for him had to be destroyed thereby. Helpless she listened. knowrtjg full well what the old frontiersman's next word would be. "Prove it." mocked Armstrong. "How?" "By your own band, out of your own mouth, you dog," thundered old Kirkby. "Miss Enid, where are them letters I give you?'' "I?I?" faltered the girl, but there was no escape from the keen glance of the old man; her hand went to the bosom of her tunic. "Letters." exclaimed Armstrong. "What letters?" "These," answered Enid Maitland, holding up the packet. Armstrong reached for them, but KIrkby again interposed. "No, you don't," he said dryly. "Them ain't for your eves yet. Mr. Newbold, I found them letters on the tittle shelf where vour wife first struck ! when she fell over onto the butto" where she died. I figured out her dress was tore open there, and them letters she was carrying fell out and I lodged there. We had ropes an' wo went down over the rocks that way. I went first an* I picked 'em up. I never told nobody about it, an' I never ehowed 'em to a single human bein' until I give 'em to Miss Maitland at the camp." "Why not?" asked Newbold, taking the letters. "There wasn't no good tellin' nobody then, jest fer the sake o' stirrin' up . trouble." "But why did you give them to her at last?" "Because I was afeered she might fall In love with Armstrong. I sup\i posed she'd know his wrltln', but w'en she didn't I just let her keep 'em anyway. I knowed it'd all come out somehow; there 1b a God above us in spite of all the damned scoundrels on T earth like this 'un." "Are these letters addressed to my idead wife?" asked Newbold. r "They are," answered Enid Mail ft land. "L.00K ana see. L "And did Mr. Armstrong write them?" "He'll deny it, I suppose," answered i Kirkby. B "But I am familiar with his hand ft writing," said Maitland. B Taking the still unopened packet H from Newbold, he opened it, examined L back. "There Is 110 doubt about It," he said. "It's Armstrong's hand, I'd swear to it." "Oh, I'll acknowledge them," said Armstrong, seeing the absolute futility of further denial. He had forgotten all about the letters. He had not dreamed they were in existence. "You've got me beat between you; the cards are stacked against me. I've done my damndest"?and indeed that was true. Well, he had played a great game, battling for a high stake he had stuck at nothing. A career in which some good had mingled with much bad was ni ^ lank Hit Fingers Around tfie Other** j Throat. , opw at an end. Re had lost atterlft: j would he show himself a good loaerT' < "Mr. Armatrong," eald Newbolfli , luietly, extending hie hand, "here arerour letters." , "What do yoa meanf "I am not In the habit of reading; let-- , :ers addressed to other people without j permission, and when the recipient of , hem la dead long since,. I am dbubly . pound." I "You're a damned fool;" cried Ann- j itrong contemptuously. 1 'That kind of a charge from your < cind of a man Is perhaps the highest 3 :omplalnt you co*!d pay me. I don't , enow whether I shall ever get rid. of . he doubt you have tried to lodge In ] ny soul about my dead wife, but?" "There ain't no doubt about It," pro- il ;ested old Klrkby earnestly. 'Tve =1 ead them letters a hundred times [ >ver, bavin' no acruplea whatsoever, in' In every one of 'em he was begftn' an' pleadln' with her to go away i with him an' flghtin' her refusal to do t. I guess I've got to admit that she \f ;/ iIt Was the Woman Who Broke the Silence. didn't love you none, Newbold, an' she did love thiB here wuthless Armstrong, but for the sake of her reputation, I'll prove to you all from them letters of hisn, from his own words, that there didn't live a cleaner hearted, more virtuous upright feemale than that there wife of yourn, even if she didn't love you. It's God's truth an' you kin take It from me." "Mr. Armstrong," cried Enid Maitland, interposing at this juncture. "Not very long ago I told you I liked you better than any man I had ever seen. I thought perhaps I might have loved you, and that was true. You have played the coward's part and the liar's part in this room?" "Did I fight him like a coward?" asked Armstrong. "No," answered Newbold for her, re membering tne struggle; -you iougui like a man." Singular perversion of language and thought there! If two struggled like wild beasts that was fighting like men! "But let that pass," continued the woman. "1 don't deny your physical courage, but I am going to appeal to another kind of a courage which I believe you possess. You have showed your evil side here in this room, but I don't believe that's the only side you have^else ^couldn't have_liked ?ou in the. past You have made a charge < against two women; one dead and one living. It makes little difference what i you say about me. I need no defense. 4 and no Justification In the eyes of 4 those here who loVe me, and for the rest of the world I don't care. But you have slain this mail's confidence In a 4 woman he once 1 erred, and who he 4 thought loved him. Am yon are a man,! tell him that It was a lie and that she was Innocent of anythlag else although 4 she did love you." 4 What a singular situation, an obser- 4 ver who knew all might have reflect* ed! Here was Enid Maltlaad pleading 4 for the good name of the weman who 4 had married the man she now loved, 4 and whom by rights she should hove Jealously hated. 4 "You ask me more than I call * 4, faltered Armstrong yet greatly moved 4 by this touching appeal to his better ' self. 4< "Let him speak no word," protested 4 Newbold quickly. "I wouldn't believe v him on his oath." "Steady now, steady," Interposed f Klrkby with his frontier Instinct for 4 fair play, "the man's down, Newbold, 4 don't hit him now." J "Give him a chance," added Maltland earnestly. ?j "Ton would not bellere me, eh?" 4 laogbed Armstrong horribly, "well J tbem this to what I say, whether it la < true or a He yoo can be the judge." 4 What waa be about to say? Theyi 4 ?n reeognlaed Instinctively that hie J forthcoming' deliverance would be a 4 final one. Would good or evfl domfn- < ate hfm now? Enid Maftland had ft made tow plea and It had bees a pow- ? BTful oner the man did truly lore J the woman who urged hlra; there wm J nothing left tor Urn bat a chaste* that *4 the should thin* better of Wat than. ? he merited; he lad1 com* to th* cad J jt hie resources. And EhM Mgltflwdi ipoke again as he hesitated. 4 "O, thinis; think; befiorv yew wgm&T 4 rtn? cried. 4 "It I thought," answered; Amm- J strong quiclcJy, "F should gp> mad_ BF*w- ; 5oldv your wife was as pur* a* the f mow; that si* loved' me 1 cannot and* 4 *111' not deny, she married you< to m 4 Bt of jealousy and anger after a gnarrel between us In which I was to- 4 blame;, and whan' I came hack, to the 4 samp- In your absence, r strove tx> 4 make It up and used every argument that I possessed' to get her to leave 4 rou and to live with me. Although 4 she had: no' Iowa for. you she was too 4 good and too true a woman tor that. 4 Now you've got the truth,, damn you, 4 believe it or not as you. like; Hiss Maltland," he added swiftly. "If lhad! 4 met you sooner,. L might have Been 4 a better man. Gbod bye." 4 He turned suddenly and none pre . venting;.indeedt it was not poeeibB*,. he ran to. the outer door;: as. he did! so ?S bis hand snatched something that lay J on the chest of drawer* There was. j a flash of light as he drew In his- arm but none saw what It was. In & few <5 seconds he was outside the door. The table was between old Klrkby and the ? exit; Maltland and Newbold were ^ nearest The eld man came to his senses first. "Alter hlm,'^ he criet^ "he means? " a But before anybody could stir the ? dull report of a plstoi come through t the open door! They found Armstrong lying on his a back in the snowy path, his face as white as tho drift that pillowed his * head, Newbold's heavy revolver still clutched in his right hand and a bloody welling smudge on his left * breast over his heart. It was the woman who broke the silence. "Oh," she sobbed, "It can't be?" "Dead," said Maltland solemnly. "And It might have been by my hand," muttered Newbold to himself in horror. "He'll never cause no more trouble , to nobody in this world, Miss Enid an' gents," said old Klrkby gravely. "Well, ? he was a damned fool an' a damned villain In some ways," continued the old frontiersman reflectively in the si. lence broken otherwise only by the woman's sobbing breaths, "but he had some of the qualities that go to make a man, an' I ain't doubtln' but what them last words of hisn was mighty near true. Ef he had met a girl like you earlier in his life, he mought have been a different man." CHAPTER XXIV. The Draught of Joy. The great library was the prettiest room in Robert Maitland's magnificent mansion in Denver's most favored resaor?flAn Tt tl*q a a loner low iUVUW OVVWIVUI * V n Wk/ M ?vug| ? II studded room with a heavy beamed celling. The low book cases, about five feet high, ran between all the windows and doors on all sides of the room. At one end there was a huge open fire place built of rough stone, and as It was winter a cheerful fire of logs blazed on the hearth. It was a man's room pre-eminently. The drawing-room across the hall was Mrs. Maitland's domain, but the library reflected her husband's picturesque if somewhat erratic taste. On the walls there, were pictures of E t t h I Do You : Assi&a _ t* If you want a hom if and if we haven't 1 t ^ . r. TTf. we can get it. we ing some nice reside* > in and some busine* f t* that will yield got C your investment if b< ? Gome in and let \ our list of homes', vj $ farms. Buy now whi > . ? and you will never n I Maynard-Raley Ml I : Offices Ranard Hotel Bids:. f .. I he west bjr Remington,. march- ?et 1 ndL Ductal, Dtxoa and others, broth nd to set then* off, finely mount- bold, d heads ?f bear and deer and! buffalo. Tb I words and-other arms stood here and land Sere. Tift wrltdnar taMe wni massive Kethf iDd the chairs eaay, comfortable and that Belting. The door was strewn with atrab obes and rugs-. From tt? windows night acing westward, since the house was had# et on a high hill, one could see the takei ;reat rampart of the range. "W.'ty There were tbcree men In the room Th >n that brilliant. morning early In Jan- a bo! tary something like a month after meai hese adventures in the mountains and_ ^hich have, . been so veraciously ROY, 1 BAKIN I powi Ill Absolutely H Economizes Bntl Tfj Eggs; makes the || appetizing and \ M The only Baking P W from Royal Grape Cr Need? i nAA^ Ml j u^c.r m i e wc have] it, y 11 0 vhat you want W are also offer- Jj 1 ce lots, close ?. ^ > s lots at prices ? ) d returns on T 3 ught now. X us show you X i cant lots and X 1 e dirt is cheap ? gret it. \] I Triisi Co. f f : Phone 84 o y rm tK~ TwiTnf thorn wfiro ma l? s Maltland; the third was New94 ihock produced upon Enid Maltby the death of Armstrong to>r with the tremendous episodes ha d preceded It had utterly prosed her. They had spent the : a t the hut In the mountains and decided that the woman must be l back to the settlements somp al all hazards. & wit of old Klrkby had effected Lution of the problem, using a is- certainly as old as Napoleon the passage of his cannon over (To be continued.) ?jT1 16 ' I DER ? Pure m let, Flour,' 6T hod more rty irlolesome <79? ovder made ffl can oi Tartar ? i