e subconscious knowledge of dependence on
somebody else, the subjection to somebody else's ultimate control,
played no part.

To Laura Macpherson she seemed to have burst from the bud to the
full-blown flower in one short forenoon.

York's face, however, was wearing that impenetrable mask that even his
sister's keen and loving eyes could never pierce. He had been
impenetrable often in the last few weeks. But of the York back of that
unreadable face Laura was sure. Even in their mutual teasings the deep,
brotherly affection was unwavering. As far as it lay in York's power he
would never fail to make up to his companionable sister for what
circumstances had taken from her. And yet--the substratum of her
disturbed consciousness would send an upheaval to the surface now and
then. All normal minds are made alike and played upon by the same
influences. The difference lies in the intensity of control to subdue or
yield to the force of these influences. Things had happened in that
morning ride that York had planned merely for the beneficence of the
prairie breezes upon the bewildered purposes of the guest of the house.

On the far side of the "Kingussie" ranch the two riders had halted in
the shade of a clump of wild plum-trees beside the trail that follows
the course of the Sage Brush. Below them a little creek wound through a
shelving outcrop of shale, bordered by soft, steep earth banks wherever
the shale disappeared. This Kingussie Creek was sometimes a swift,
dangerous stream, but oftener it was a mere runlet with deep water-holes
carved here and there in the yielding shale. Just now, at the approach
of July heat, there was only a tiny thread of water trickling clear
over yellow rock, or deep pools lying in muddy thickness in the stagnant
places.

"Not much like the Winnowoc," York suggested, as his companion sat
staring down at the stream-bed below.

"Everything is different here," Jerry said, meditatively. "I've traveled
quite a little before; been as far as the White Mountains and the
beautiful woodsy country up in York State. There's a lot of upness and
downness to the scenery, but the people--except, of course--" Jerry
smiled bewitchingly.

"Except Ponk, of course," York supplied, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"How well you comprehend!" Jerry assured him. "But, seriously, the world
is so different out here--the--the people and their ways and all."

"No, Jerry, it isn't that. The climate is different. The shape