?" he repeated slowly.

"And pray how should I have caught him?" she asked.

"But--but, didn't he _run_?"

She laughed. "Of course he ran. They all do that once they get away from
you. But Snip never could outrun my Midnight," she retorted.

He shook his head slowly, looking at her with frank admiration, as
though, for the first time, he understood what a rare and wonderful
creature she was.

"And you can ride and rope like that?" he said doubtfully.

She flushed hotly, and there was a spark of fire in the brown eyes. "I
suppose you are thinking that I am coarse and mannish and all that," she
said with spirit. "By your standards, Mr. Patches, I should have ridden
back to the house, screaming, ladylike, for help."

"No, no," he protested. "That's not fair. I was thinking how wonderful
you are. Why, I would give--what wouldn't I give to be able to do a
thing like that!"

There was no mistaking his earnestness, and Kitty was all sunshine
again, pardoning him with a smile.

"You see," she explained, "I have always lived here, except my three
years at school. Father taught me to use a riata, as he taught me to
ride and shoot, because--well--because it's all a part of this life, and
very useful sometimes; just as it is useful to know about hotels and
time-tables and taxicabs, in that other part of the world."

"I understand," he said gently. "It was stupid of me to notice it. I beg
your pardon for interrupting the story of my rescue. You had just roped
Snip while he was doing his best to outrun Midnight--simple and easy as
calling a taxi--'Number Two Thousand Euclid Avenue, please'--and there
you are."

"Oh, do you know Cleveland?" she cried.

For an instant he was confused. Then he said easily, "Everybody has
heard of the famous Euclid Avenue. But how did you guess where Snip had
left me?"

"Why, Stella had told me that you were riding the drift fence," she
answered, tactfully ignoring the evasion of her question. "I just
followed the fence. So there was no magic about it at all, you see."

"I'm not so sure about the magic," he returned slowly.

"This is such a wonderful country--to me--that one can never be quite
sure about anything. At least, I can't. But perhaps that's because I am
such a new thing."

"And do you like it?" she asked, frankly curious about him.

"Like being a new thing?" he parried. "Yes and No."

"I mean do you like this wonderful country, as you call it?"

"I admire the people who