ce on the saddle. Then,
without a glance toward the stranger who stood watching him in
embarrassed silence, he threw the bridle reins over his horse's head,
gripped the saddle horn and swung to his seat, reining his horse away
from the man beside the road.

The stranger, thus abruptly dismissed, moved hurriedly away.

Half way to the creek the cowboy checked his horse and looked back at
the pedestrian as the latter was making his way under the pines and up
the hill. When the man had disappeared over the crest of the hill, the
cowboy muttered a bewildered something, and, touching his horse with the
spurs, loped away, as if dismissing a problem too complex for his simple
mind.

All that day the stranger followed the dusty, unfenced road. Over his
head the wide, bright sky was without a cloud to break its vast expanse.
On the great, open range of mountain, flat and valley the cattle lay
quietly in the shade of oak or walnut or cedar, or, with slow, listless
movement, sought the watering places to slake their thirst. The wild
things retreated to their secret hiding places in rocky den and leafy
thicket to await the cool of the evening hunting hour. The very air was
motionless, as if the never-tired wind itself drowsed indolently.

And alone in the hushed bigness of that land the man walked with his
thoughts--brooding, perhaps, over whatever it was that had so strangely
placed him there--dreaming, it may be, over that which might have been,
or that which yet might be--viewing with questioning, wondering,
half-fearful eyes the mighty, untamed scenes that met his eye on every
hand. Nor did anyone see him, for at every sound of approaching horse or
vehicle he went aside from the highway to hide in the bushes or behind
convenient rocks. And always when he came from his hiding place to
resume his journey that odd smile of self-mockery was on his face.

At noon he rested for a little beside the road while he ate a meager
sandwich that he took from the pocket of his coat. Then he pushed on
again, with grim determination, deeper and deeper into the heart and
life of that world which was, to him, so evidently new and strange. The
afternoon was well spent when he made his way--wearily now, with
drooping shoulders and dragging step--up the long slope of the Divide
that marks the eastern boundary of the range about Williamson Valley.

At the summit, where the road turns sharply around a shoulder of the
mountain and begins the stee