ich he had passed many hours during the days of his
convalescence, the other in which she had sat quite often--near him. Not
until now did he realize how full and satisfying those days had been. As
he dismounted and tied his pony to one of the slender porch columns he
smiled--thinking of Norton's question during their discussion of Ace's
poem. "Of course"--the range boss had said--"if she's any kind of a
woman at all she's got him runnin'. But which way?" Of
course--literally--she did not have him running, but he knew that some
uncommon passion had gripped him and that he was unaccountably pleased.

His smile grew when he remembered her sudden indignation over his
thoughtless statement that women had never interested him. Of course he
would not tell her that he felt a serious interest in _one_ woman.
When he dropped into his favorite chair, removing his hat and mopping
the perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief, he caught her
looking swiftly at the scar under his right eye--which would always be a
reminder of his experience on the night of the storm. She saw his brows
contract in a frown.

"You have quite recovered," she said; "except for that slight scar under
the eye you are the same as before the meeting with Dunlavey's men."

He looked beyond her at the tawny mountains that rose in the
distance,--miles on the other side of the big basin--swimming in the
shimmering blur of white sky--somber guardians of a mysterious world.
What secret did they guard? What did they know of this world of eternal
sunlight, of infinite distance? Did they know as much of the world upon
which they frowned as he knew of the heart of the slender, motherly girl
whose eyes betrayed her each time he looked into them?

A smile that lurked deep within him did not show in his face--it was
unborn and it gripped him strangely, creating a sensation in his breast
that he could not analyze, but which pleaded to be expressed. He could
not express it--now. He feared to trust himself and so he fought it
down, assuring himself that it was not yet time. But he knew that he was
not the same as before his experience with Dunlavey on the night of the
storm. Something had stolen into his heart and was enthroned there;
something deeper than a mere scar--a girl who had mothered him in his
extremity; who had hovered over him, attending to his bruises, binding
his wounds, tenderly smoothing his brow during the days and nights of
the fever; attendin