He swept his gaze the length and breadth of the desolate valley, and across the river over the sand hills.

All alike appeared deserted, not a moving thing being visible between the bluffs and the stream.

Still he had the unpleasant feeling of being watched, and it made him restless and eager to be away.

The earlier gust of anger, the spirit of revenge, had left him, but it had merely changed into a dogged resolution to discover the perpetrators of this outrage and bring them to justice for the crime.

The face in the locket seemed to ask it of him, and his nature urged response.