phant with his gray eyes
narrowed, his broad shoulders set.

"On your head be it!" he murmured. "I am going to try!"

He climbed the trail to his house, washed and brushed himself and went
over to the tent house. Pen was sitting on the doorstep. Oscar Ames was
talking to Sara.

"Hello, Sara!" said Jim coolly. "Pen, I've got a free hour. Will you
come up back of the camp with me and let me show you the view from Wind
Ridge? It's finer than what you get from the Elephant."

Sara's face was inscrutable. Oscar said nothing. Pen laid aside her book
and picked up her hat.

"I knew there was something the matter with me," she said gaily. "It was
Wind Ridge I was missing though I never heard of it before! I won't be
long, Sara."

"Don't hurry on my account," said Sara, with a sardonic glance at Jim.

The trail led up the mountain slope with a steady twist toward a ridge
at the top that showed a sawtooth edge. Almost to the top the mountain
was dotted with little green cedars, dwarfed and wind-tortured. Up at
the saw edge they stopped. Here the wind caught them, wind flooding
across desert and mountain, clean, sweet, with a marvelous tang to it,
despite the desert heat.

"Why, it's a world of lavenders!" cried Pen.

Jim nodded and steadied her against the great warm rush of the wind. Far
to the east beyond the purple Elephant the San Juan mountains lay on the
horizon. They were the faintest, clearest blue lavender, with iridescent
peaks merging into the iridescent sky. The desert that swept toward the
Elephant was a yellow lavender. The mountain that bore the ridge was a
gray lavender. To the west, three great ranges vied with each other in
melting tints of purple, that now were blue, now were lavender. The two
might have been sitting at the top of the world, the sweep of the view
and the sense of exaltation in it were so great.

Mighty white clouds rushed across the sky, sweeping their blue shadows
over the desert, like ripples in the wake of huge sailing ships.

When Pen had looked her fill, Jim led her to a clump of cedars that
broke the wind and made a seat for her from branches. Then he tossed his
hat down and stood before her. Pen looked up into his face.

"Why so serious, Still Jim?" she asked.

"Penelope," asked Jim, "do you remember that twice I held you in my arms
and kissed you on the lips and told you that you belonged to me?"

Pen whitened. If he could only dream how the pain and sweetness of those