been more than three hours."

Keith put away the glass, and shot ahead to guide her.

"We must have missed him, somewhere." The eyes of Beatrice were heavy
with the weariness born of anxiety and suspense. They stood at the very
edge of the steep bluff which rimmed the river. "You don't think he
could have--" Her eyes, shuddering down at the mocking, blue-gray
ripples, finished the thought.

"He couldn't have got this far," said Keith. "His legs would give out,
climbing up and down. We'll go back by a little different way, and
look."

"There's something moving, off there." Beatrice pointed with her whip.

"That's a coyote," Keith told her; and then, seeing the look on her
face: "They won't hurt any one. They're the rankest cowards on the
range."

"But the snakes--"

"Oh, well, he might wander around for a week, and not run across one. We
won't borrow trouble, anyway."

"No," she agreed languidly. The sun was hot, and she had not had
anything to eat since early breakfast, and the river mocked her parched
throat with its cool glimmer below. She looked down at it wistfully,
and Keith, watchful of every passing change in her face, led her back
to where a cold, little spring crept from beneath a rock; there, lifting
her down, he taught her how to drink from her hand.

For himself, he threw himself down, pushed back his hat, and drank
long and leisurely. A brown lock of hair, clinging softly together with
moisture, fell from his forehead and trailed in the clear water, and
Beatrice felt oddly tempted to push it back where it belonged. Standing
quietly watching his picturesque figure, she forgot, for the moment,
that a little boy was lost among these peaceful, sunbathed hills; she
remembered only the man at her feet, drinking long, satisfying drafts,
while the lock of hair floated in the spring.

"Now we'll go on." He stood up and pushed back the wet lock, which
trickled a tiny stream down his cheek, and settled his gray hat in
place.

Again that day he felt her foot in his palm, and the touch went over him
in thrills. She was tired, he knew; her foot pressed heavier than it had
before. He would have liked to take her in his arms and lift her
bodily into the saddle, but he hardly dared think of such a blissful
proceeding.

He set the pace slower, however, and avoided the steepest places, and he
halted often on the higher ground, to scan sharply the coulees. And so
they searched, these two, together, and grew to