Shortly after five o’clock that same day, Johnny and Tony emerged from the lava beds to the east of the Diamond-Bar stronghold. Below them, its fringe of poplars glistening in the sunlight, stood the comfortable old house and its outbuildings.

The trail from town led across miles of uninteresting flats, alkali patches and finally by means of much tortuous winding through the lava beds. A haze, as of smoke, hung in the sky. The air was warm. At midday it had been hot in the open. Sage hen and mountain quail rose before them, the old cocks and hens so heavy that the frantic flapping of their wings as they got into the air made the horses throw up their heads every time they flushed a covey.

Sleeping in a saddle is a little trick the rangeman soon acquires. Many times on this same trail Johnny and the Basque had ridden with closed eyes, their minds in dreamland. Not so today! And wherever men toiled north of the Humboldt this exception held true. This day was one of the awaited ones—one of those few, brief days of Indian summer when the desert smiles and relents. Perhaps because the time is so short, God pours the wine of life with a lavish hand. Mexican peon, Basque pellado, argonaut, prospector, cowman, herder—not one but answers to the spell of this magic which the red gods long ago gave to the tribes.

And yet this marvelous day found a peculiar sadness in Johnny’s heart. Restless, untalkative, he had ridden the long miles, little understanding the misery which was in him. The sight of the old Diamond-Bar house seemed to furnish him with an answer, for he squinted his eyes to blot out some sudden emotion. Was he homesick? Was it the knowledge that he would not be riding this trail again that was setting so heavily upon him?

Johnny need not have wondered longer. He had discovered the truth. And this day of days had only accentuated his unhappiness.

This was his country. He knew every mesa, draw and coulee as a city boy knows his own block. Far horizons, towering peaks—they were landmarks to him; things of life, with personalities. There were things here that he loved because they were beautiful—colors unequaled, vistas beyond comparison.

To say that he ever referred to it in these or similar terms would be more than the truth. But he felt it; answered to the tug of it. And Johnny Dice was not an emotional person.

And yet men called his chosen land a desert. Passing strange it is that so ill a name suffices.

When they reached the house they found it seemingly as lazy as the day. Charlie Sam, the Chinese cook, lay sprawled upon a bench in the sun. He did not so much as move as Johnny rode past him. Little Hughie High, who combined the duties of ranch blacksmith, filer, and man of all work, had been tinkering with the windmill. He waved a careless hand from his perch above them, but made no word of greeting, fearing to break the undisturbed comfort which so rarely came his way.

A wide hall led through the ranch-house, in back of which stood the bunk-house. Beyond that, at some distance, were the barns and corrals. On the side of the house facing the men’s quarters, with a door opening to the hallway, the old man had his office, a big square-shaped room.

On stated occasions, when it pleased old Jackson to unbend, he escorted whichever of his men he had invited into his sanctum, down that long, wide hall to the front door. Only at such times did the Diamond-Bar hands tread those precincts.

Tony went on to the bunk-house, but Johnny stopped and whistled a call. It went unanswered. His roving eyes searched the yard and windows, but Molly Kent was not to be seen. Walking around to the front of the house, Johnny peered through open doors. Tony had gone around to the rear of the place by now, and Johnny saw him as he stepped into the bunk-house.

Left alone with his thoughts, the boy stopped and listened. Only the penetrating sound of Charlie Sam’s snoring broke the stillness. Cautiously, Johnny whistled again. His embarrassment grew as he waited. Minutes passed, and a boldness he had never known in his days as a Diamond-Bar man took possession of him. Crossing the threshold he tapped on the door of Molly Kent’s room.

Light as his tap had been the unlatched door moved back an inch or two. The delicate perfume which he had always associated with Molly reached his nostrils. Unknown to himself, he trembled.

She was not here; his good-bye would have to go unsaid. He extracted some slight degree of comfort from that. Good-byes did not come easily to his lips.

An overwhelming desire to push back that door and to stand for just one minute in the room which she had sanctified with her presence all these years took possession of him. There in her room he’d say his farewell to her.

From his pocket he brought forth a mysterious little package—a mouth organ. This was in answer to Molly’s often expressed desire for one. Johnny had not spared his money in purchasing it. He had had it sent all the way from San Francisco. He looked at the package as if asking it to answer him.

“Yes,” he murmured; “this’ll be best. I’ll just leave it on her dresser for her. Maybe she’ll guess it’s from me.”

The inside of that room was a revelation to Johnny Dice. Never before had he been face to face with feminine daintiness of this sort. From the chintz curtains and colorful cretonnes to the array of mysterious articles spread about him this room was as different from the rest of the house as day is from night.

Something sang in Johnny’s heart as he reached out to place his gift on Molly’s dresser and found himself gazing at his own picture in a neat little frame hung to one side of the girl’s large mirror.

The picture was an old-fashioned studio photograph portraying the subject in one of his saddest and most miserable moments. Johnny’s pride had long since forced him to destroy the copy he had kept for himself. But there it was in her room!

The world suddenly became a paradise. Even on Johnny the day had not been wasted. He smiled sheepishly on catching sight of his own reflection in the glass. He began to ask himself important questions. Between Molly and him there had never passed a word beyond the province of friendship. She was a rich man’s daughter, and forty a month is no inducement to hold out to young ladies of her means. And then, too, it didn’t lead to steady employment if one made eyes at owners’ daughters. There were some social barriers even in Nevada.

Now, that he was leaving, matters matured very rapidly in the boy’s mind. What sort of a fool had he been all these years not to have known that he was over his head, that Molly Kent meant more to him than any other being who had come into his life? An hour ago he had told himself he was blue because he was leaving the country and the Diamond-Bar behind. That was a lie! Own up to it, now. It wasn’t the Diamond-Bar or the purple shadows on the Tuscaroras that he was going to miss. No! It was Molly Kent!

And Molly? Johnny’s teeth clenched under his tightly pressed lips as he gazed once more on that picture of himself.

“She don’t hate me, at least,” he murmured half aloud. “Who’d ever thought she’d ’a’ kept that thing all these years? Why—and there’s those little silver spurs I brung her when she was just a kid. Real silver, they was, too.”

Johnny put his hand on them tenderly. He seemed to have difficulty in breathing. Emotion was welling up in him to a point which made him reel. The mouth organ was placed on the bureau. He wanted to get outside, to think, to tell himself that he had not been dreaming, that life still went on.

Was it because of Molly that the old man had been so short with him? The thought galloped through Johnny’s mind. Did Jackson Kent see in him a possible suitor for her hand—an undesirable, financially irresponsible suitor? Had there been talk, whisperings behind his back? Had Molly said anything? A dozen questions leaped to his mind. He shook his head wearily as he turned for the door, anxious to be away from this house which only a few minutes before he had been loath to leave. Another step would have taken him to the door, when he stopped, mouth open, his eyes bulging as if they could not believe what they beheld. Slowly the foot which he had poised in mid-air came down; but the accusing finger which he had pointed at the thing beside the door did not waver.

“Great God!” he groaned. “That’s a copy of the picture I’ve got in my pocket!”

It was, beyond question. Set in a small gold frame hung beside the door was an exact duplicate of the photograph he had found in the dead man’s wallet.

With cold fingers he held up the picture that he drew from his pocket until it rested beside the one on the wall. They were the same!

Eyes transfixed, Johnny stared on and on, and as he stood there spellbound, the door opened. Jackson Kent faced him. Something too big for words held the two for a brief second. Johnny was the first to react. Surreptitiously the hand holding the picture moved to his pocket, but he was too late. The old man had been staring at it.

Fingers of steel caught and held Johnny’s arm. The surprise had died out of Kent’s eyes. They were flashing now with a madman’s fury. The boy could feel the man’s hot breath upon his cheek. Johnny heard the other’s voice break as he fought for speech.

Then, with heaving lungs, old Jackson cried out:

“Give it to me! Give it to me—do you hear?” His voice arose until it became almost a scream as he demanded: “What are you doin’ with that picture of my little girl?”

Kent’s hungry fingers lunged for the coveted photograph. Johnny’s eyes had narrowed to mere slits.

“No!” he exclaimed. “I keep that picture. It belongs to a dead man!”