while Laramie held it.

A great melancholy overcame him: "What do you want me to do?" he said
suddenly.

Kate's eyebrows rose. She looked at him: "Why, set it on the table,"
she laughed.

"No, I mean what do you want me to do--myself."

She could not wholly misunderstand his look, though little did he
realize how she feared it; or what a dread respect she secretly had for
the grave eyes so closely bent on her own. She laughed really to
gather courage, and it was easy to laugh a little because he did look
so odd as he stood before her, with the platter in both hands, but
terribly in earnest. "Set the platter on the table before you burn
yourself," she pleaded.

"You must want me to do something," he persisted, "get off the earth or
stay on it--now, don't you? Say what you want me to do, and, by----"
He checked himself. "And I'll do it."

She could restrain him but she could not turn him. He did put the
platter on the table without getting any answer but now that his mind
was set, it reverted stubbornly to the one subject and when supper was
over and they sat opposite each other in the little dining-room
talking, she said she knew he had burned his hands. "I wouldn't mind
if I had," he remarked frankly. "Almost every time I've talked with
you I've held the hot end of a poker; I'm getting to look for it." He
drew a deep breath. "You never liked me, did you, Kate?"

"That isn't so."

"You always kind of held off."

"Perhaps I was a little afraid of you."

"You're not afraid of me now--are you--with one arm out of commission?
Are you?"

She looked at him in a troubled sort of way: "Why, no--not very," she
returned, half laughing.

"You were never half as much afraid of me as I was of you," he murmured.

His eyes across the table were growing very importunate. She could not
realize how flushed and soft and tantalizing her own eyes were, framed
by the warm color high in her cheeks. She rose with a hurried
exclamation and looked dismayed at him, her hands tilted on the table,
her brows high and her burning eyes still laughing: "We've left the
light on by the stove all this time," she whispered. "Belle will be
furious!"

She slipped hurriedly out into the kitchen and turned off the light.
Her face was hot. She was thirsty and stepping to the water faucet she
picked up a glass. The mountain water tasted so cold and good; in some
way it made her think of great peaks and the crisp, clear air of hi