me; and when the sun was low, if they were yet in a land of
fences, he of the horse and wagon hurried on to get pasturage for
the night.

That first day some of the leaders had begun to wander and make
trouble. For that reason Trove was walking beside the buckboard in
front of the drove.

"We'll stop to-night on Cedar Hill," said the boss, about
mid-afternoon. "Martha Vaughn has got the best pasture and the
prettiest girl in this part o' the country. If you don't fall in
love with that girl, you ought t' be licked."

Now Trove had no very high opinion of girls. Up there in Brier
Dale he had seen little of them. At the red schoolhouse, even,
they were few and far from his ideal. And they were a foolish lot
there in Hillsborough, it seemed to him--all save two or three who
were, he owned, very sweet and beautiful; but he had seen how they
tempted other boys to extravagance, and was content with a sly
glance at them now and then.

"I don't ever expect to fall in love," said Trove, confidently.

"Wal, love is a thing that always takes ye by surprise," the other
answered. "Mrs. Vaughn is a widow, an' we generally stop there the
first day out. She's a poor woman, an' it gives her a lift."

They came shortly to the little weather-stained house of the widow.
As they approached, a girl, with arms bare to the elbow, stood
looking at them, her hand shading her eyes.

"Co' boss! Co' boss! Co' boss!" she was calling, in a sweet,
girlish treble.

Trove came up to the gate, and presently her big, dark eyes were
looking into his own. That very moment he trembled before them as
a reed shaken by the wind. Long after then, he said that something
in her voice had first appealed to him. Her soft eyes were,
indeed, of those that quicken the hearts of men. It is doubtful if
there were, in all the world, a lovelier thing than that wild
flower of girlhood up there in the hills. She was no dream of
romance, dear reader. In one of the public buildings of a certain
capital her portrait has been hanging these forty years, and wins,
from all who pass it, the homage of a long look. But Trove said,
often, that she was never quite so lovely as that day she stood
calling the cows--her shapely, brown face aglow with the light of
youth, her dark hair curling on either side as it fell to her
shoulders.

"Good day," said he, a little embarrassed.

"Good day," said she, coolly, turning toward the house.

Trove was now in the