if not poor Dick, could hold his own in mental and artistic
perception with the brightest, most cultured of Harvard
graduates.

At the end of the year she came back home to await Dick's return
from the wilds of Mexico. There was great anxiety about his
safety, for Geronimo, attacked by Crook in the Apache stronghold
of the Tonto Basin, had escaped to the mountains of northwestern
Mexico with his band of fierce Chiricahuas.

Now Dick Lane had not been heard from in this region. When he
neither made appearance nor sent a message upon the day appointed
for his return, his brother, Bud, was for setting out instantly
to find him and rescue him if he were in difficulties.

Then it was that Echo Allen discovered the true nature of her
affection for her lover, that it was sisterly regard, differing
only in degree, but not in kind, from that which she felt for his
brother. She joined with Polly in opposing Bud's going, urging
his recklessness as a reason. "You are certain to be killed,"
she said, "and I cannot lose you both." Jack Payson, for whom
Bud was working, then came forward and offered to accompany him,
and keep him with bounds. Again there was a revelation of her
heart Echo, and one that terrified her with a sense of
disloyalty. It was Jack she really loved, noble, chivalric,
wonderful Jack Payson, whom, with a Southern intensity of
feeling, she had unconsciously come to regard as her standard of
all that makes for manhood. Plausible objections could not be
urged against his sacrificing himself for his friend. With an
irresistible impulse she cast herself upon his breast and said: