ing, as usual,
trailing in her rear, astride a calico pony and leading the saddle
horse which she evidently had become tired of riding. A small switch
was in one hand, and she flipped it at the new leaves of the aspens and
the broad-leafed mullens beside the road. As yet, she had not seen
him, and Barry hurried toward her, jamming his cap into a pocket that
his hand might be free to greet her. He waved airily as they came
closer and called. But if she heard him, she gave no indication.
Instead, she turned--swiftly, Houston thought--and mounted her horse.
A moment later, she trotted past him, and again he greeted her, to be
answered by a nod and a slight movement of the lips. But the eyes had
been averted. Barry could see that the thinnest veneer of politeness
had shielded something else as she spoke to him,--an expression of
distaste, of dislike, almost loathing!

CHAPTER VII

"Why?"

Barry Houston could not answer the self-imposed question. He could
only stand and stare after her and the trotting, rolling Indian, as
they moved down the road and disappeared in the shadow of the aspens at
the next curve. She had seen him; there could be no doubt of that.
She had recognized him; more, Houston felt sure that she had mounted
her horse that she might better be able to pass him and greet him with
a formal nod instead of a more friendly acknowledgment. And this was
the girl who, an afternoon before, had sat beside him on the worn old
bench at the side of Ba'tiste's cabin and picked thorns from the palm
of his hand,--thorns from the stems of wild roses which she had brought
him! The enigma was too great for Houston. He could only gasp with
the suddenness of it and sink back into a dullness of outlook and
viewpoint which he had lost momentarily. It was thus that old friends
had passed him by in Boston; it was thus that men who had been glad to
borrow money from him in other days had looked the other way when the
clouds had come. A strange chill went over him.

"Thayer's told her!"

He spoke the sentence like a man repeating the words of an execution.
His features suddenly had grown haggard. He stumbled slightly as he
made the next rise in the road and went on slowly, silently, toward the
cabin.

There Ba'tiste found him, slumped on the bench, staring out at the
white and rose pinks of Mount Taluchen, yet seeing none of it. The big
man boomed a greeting, and Barry, striving for a smile, answered him.