Far out in the valley a dark group of horsemen were riding toward the village.

Jean glanced thoughtfully at them and reflected that he seemed destined to harbor suspicion of all men new and strange to him.

Above the distant village stood the darkly green foothills leading up to the craggy slopes, and these ending in the Rim, a red, black-fringed mountain front, beautiful in the morning sunlight, lonely, serene, and mysterious against the level skyline.

Mountains, ranges, distances unknown to Jean, always called to him--to come, to seek, to explore, to find, but no wild horizon ever before beckoned to him as this one.

And the subtle vague emotion that had gone to sleep with him last night awoke now hauntingly.