The threatened rainstorm broke, bringing early night, as Justin reached home. Lemuel Fogg was at the ranch house with Davison. Fogg’s shining photograph wagon had been brought out and a pair of horses hitched to it.

“Ben isn’t here,” said Davison; “I suppose he’s in town, looking after election matters; so, as soon as you can get those things into the house, I want you to ride along the line fence and see that everything is all right, for we don’t want any cattle breaking out and making trouble with the farmers just now. Fogg and I are going up the trail together in his wagon. He wants to get a photograph. We’ll be near the dam, or a short distance below it, where Jasper’s lateral makes out into his fields. I think you will find us at the bridge there over the lateral, and you can come there and make your report, when you’ve looked at the fence. Report promptly, if there’s any trouble.”

Fogg came out of the house in oil hat and slicker, buttoned to the chin against the storm. He resembled a yellow, overgrown Santa Claus, minus the beard.

“Hello, Justin!” he cried, advancing and extending his hand, as Justin swung a bag of meal to the ground. “We’re in for a good ground-soaker, I guess. The lightning is beginning to play fine. It’s great over there on the mountain. When she gets to going good I’ll try to nail one of the flashes down on a negative. I’ve tried a dozen times and failed; now I’m going to try again.”

Having shaken hands, Fogg ran heavily toward the wine-colored wagon; the rain was beginning to roar, and the interior of the wagon, as he knew, was as tight as a house. Then the shining wagon whirled away, with the rain drops glistening on it, revealed by the lightning, which was already waving fiery swords in the sky.

Justin followed on his cow-pony as quickly as he could, garbed like Fogg in a yellow oil slicker, and galloped along the wire fence that ran here toward the town. It was not a pleasant ride. The gusty rain beat in his face and the wind blew a tempest. The lightning, increasing in frequency, showed the fence intact, as far as the lower end of the deep chasm called the Black CaÑon, which cut through the mesa above Jasper’s. There was no need to go farther than this, for he had inspected that portion of the fence earlier in the day.

The storm was in full swing before he reached Jasper’s lateral. He followed it until he came to the tiny bridge that spanned it, and there found the photograph wagon. Sheltered within the wagon, Fogg had trained his camera toward the mountain. There the play of the lightning had become something stupendous. Davison was trying to hold the bronchos and keep them quiet in the beating rain.

“I’ve taken several exposures already,” Fogg announced, when Justin made his appearance and his report. “If those horses can be kept still another minute I’ll try it there just over the dam.”

A blinding flash burned across the sky. It was so vivid that Justin closed his eyes against it. The burst of the thunder, like the explosion of a cannon, was thrown back by the stony walls of the mountain, and rolled away, booming and bellowing in the clouds. The thunder roll was followed shortly by a confused and jarring crash.

“I got that flash all right, I think,” said Fogg, “and there goes the side of the mountain!”

Landslides occurred occasionally on the sides of the mountain, and Fogg thought this was one.

“No,” Davison shouted, “it’s—the dam!”

Another crash was heard, accompanied by a popping of breaking timbers; then, with a roar like a cyclone, the dam went out, sweeping down the swollen stream in a great tangle of logs and splintered timbers. Justin galloped toward the stream.

“Better look out there, Justin,” Fogg bellowed at him. “That will bring the river out on the jump, and you don’t want to get caught by it!”

Justin heard the wagon being driven away from the little bridge. It was an exciting minute, yet he had time to think with regret of what the loss of the dam would mean to the farmers. His reflections were cut short by a scream, followed by a cry for help.

Then in the lightning’s white glare he saw on the ground before him a woman clinging to the prostrate form of a man. Justin galloped wildly, and reaching them leaped down. To his amazement the woman was Lucy Davison and the man was Ben. She had apparently dragged him beyond the reach of the water that splashed and rolled in a wild flood but a few yards away.

“Help me,” she said, without explanation. “He—he is hurt, I think.”

Justin had his arms round Ben instantly, and began to lift him. The rain was falling in sheets, and both Lucy and Ben were drenched. Ben began to help himself, and climbed unsteadily to his feet, with Justin’s assistance. Only in the intervals between the vivid lightning flashes could Justin see either Ben or Lucy.

“I’m—I’m all right!” said Ben, staggering heavily.

“I’m afraid he was hit by one of the timbers of the dam,” Lucy declared.

To Justin she seemed abnormally brave. She took hold of Ben’s arm and assisted in supporting him.

“We must get him to the house—to Jasper’s,” she urged, tremulously.

“The photograph wagon is right over there,” Justin informed her. “We’ll take him to that. If you’ll lead my horse maybe I can carry him.”

“I don’t need to be carried,” said Ben, stubbornly. “I tell you I’m all right. I slipped and fell—that’s all. Take your hands off of me; I can walk.”

Lucy clung to him, and Justin did not release his hold. He hallooed now to Davison and Fogg. They did not hear him in the roar of the storm, but by the glare of the lightning they saw the little group swaying near the margin of the wild stream and drove back to discover the meaning of the strange sight. They shouted questions of surprise, as they came up. Justin had not attempted to voice his bewilderment.

Lucy became the spokesman of the group.

“Uncle Philip, we will explain later,” she said, with emphasis. “The first thing is to get Ben home.”

“Yes, that’s so!” Davison admitted, his anxiety for Ben betrayed in his shaking voice.

Ben was helped into the photograph wagon; where he would not lie down, but insisted on sitting in the driver’s seat. Justin assisted Lucy into the wagon. It was a large wagon, in which Fogg had lived and slept in the old days when he went about taking photographs and selling curios. Justin wished he might climb in there by Lucy’s side, and do something, or say something, that would allay her evident distress. Her voice was unnaturally hard, and her manner singularly abrupt and emphatic. He knew that she was suffering.

And he had not known she was in Paradise Valley! That was the most inexplicable of all—that she should be there and no one on the ranch aware of the fact.

“She must have arrived on the evening train,” was his conclusion.

However, that explained little. How did she and Ben chance to be there by the river? Had they been walking home from the town together—through the storm? Where was Ben’s pony? That might have escaped from him, or he might have left it somewhere; but the other question was not to be answered readily. The whole subject was so cloaked in the mysterious that it seemed to defy analysis.

The storm still raged, with sheets of beating rain, with lightning fire and roll of thunder, as the wagon moved swiftly in the direction of the ranch house along the soaked and gullied trail. And behind it, galloping on his cow-pony, rode Justin, pondering the meaning and the mystery of the things he had seen and heard.

Yet through it all there was a certain sense of joy and gratification. He had been able to serve the woman he loved, and she was here at home. The first long, long separation was ended—she was home again.