the tinsel baubles that are offered in the world's petty
games of chance.

And yet, even as he looked back, there was in the man's face as much of
longing as of regret. He seemed as one who, realizing that he had
reached a point in his life journey--a divide, as it were--from which he
could see two ways, was resolved to turn from the path he longed to
follow and to take the road that appealed to him the least. As one
enlisting to fight in a just and worthy cause might pause a moment,
before taking the oath of service, to regret the ease and freedom he was
about to surrender, so this man paused on the summit of the Divide.

Slowly, at last, in weariness of body and spirit, he stumbled a few feet
aside from the road, and, sinking down upon a convenient rock, gave
himself again to the contemplation of that scene which lay before him.
And there was that in his movement now that seemed to tell of one who,
in the grip of some bitter and disappointing experience, was yet being
forced by something deep in his being to reach out in the strength of
his manhood to take that which he had been denied.

Again the man's untrained eyes had failed to note that which would have
first attracted the attention of one schooled in the land that lay about
him. He had not seen a tiny moving speck on the road over which he had
passed. A horseman was riding toward him.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE DIVIDE.

Had the man on the Divide noticed the approaching horseman it would have
been evident, even to one so unacquainted with the country as the
stranger, that the rider belonged to that land of riders. While still at
a distance too great for the eye to distinguish the details of fringed
leather chaps, soft shirt, short jumper, sombrero, spurs and riata, no
one could have mistaken the ease and grace of the cowboy who seemed so
literally a part of his horse. His seat in the saddle was so secure, so
easy, and his bearing so unaffected and natural, that every movement of
the powerful animal he rode expressed itself rhythmically in his own
lithe and sinewy body.

While the stranger sat wrapped in meditative thought, unheeding the
approach of the rider, the horseman, coming on with a long, swinging
lope, watched the motionless figure on the summit of the Divide with
careful interest. As he drew nearer the cowboy pulled his horse down to
a walk, and from under his broad hat brim regarded the stranger
intently. He was within a few yards of the point