saddle pommel and her head
was bowed. She rode through the gate, past him to the brink of the
tiny lakelet and halted. Then she looked round as if seeking some one.
She looked to where the tent lights gleamed mistily through the canvas
of Payne's camp. Then, after a long while, she dismounted and started
to lead her mount toward the tents. Payne stepped forward out of the
shadows and into her sight.

Neither spoke at first. Surprise had rendered her speechless; and as
the silvery moon haze revealed her upturned face Payne was frozen dumb.
For the look in her eyes and upon her face was a hint of the look which
he had beheld upon the countenance of Mrs. Blease. He recoiled from it
at first. Then he bent forward, scanning her mercilessly, and saw with
a sense of relief that he was wrong. The face of the girl was the
panorama of a struggle. There was fear there, and uncertainty in the
eyes; but there was no acknowledgment of defeat. The change in her
bearing was appalling to Payne. The gallant bearing of her vibrant
young body was gone. She might have been drugged, so submerged was her
true self.

"You think it's the moon, don't you?" she said with an uneasy laugh,
leaning languidly against the patient pony's neck. "Well, it isn't.
It--it's something else--something so different--I don't even
understand what it is. I don't even know if there is anything. Yet
there must be; it affects me so. I'm afraid--and yet I'm not. I--I
rather like it, too. That's why I'm afraid; I like it so well. It
seems so--soothing."

"Miss----" began Roger and paused, puzzled at what to call her.

Her response was a languid chuckle.

"My name? How formal! Does it seem natural to be formal here? It
doesn't to me. And it doesn't seem pleasant; it jars so. That's why
the other thing, whatever it is, seems so inviting and inevitable. So
natural. No formality. No straining. Nothing but--that."

"What is--'that'?" asked Payne.

"I don't know," she responded in wide-eyed wonderment. "Really, I
don't. It isn't anything tangible. It's over there some place," she
nodded languidly across the prairie. "It--frightened me to-night. I
ran away--but I didn't escape it."

"It's Garman!" blurted Payne hoarsely.

"Oh, don't!" She cowered against the pony. "Please--please don't!
Oh, if you don't wish to be cruel----"

"Miss Annette!"

The utterance of her name seemed to bring back a sense of her true
self. She strai