freebooters of the Western Wilderness
ripping the bowels out of public property out here, I'll accept that
challenge, too! We'll put up a bluff of a fight, anyway!"

"I didn't mean that, Dick." She was looking over the edge of the
Ridge. "I couldn't give a precious gift conditionally if I wanted to,
Dick. It would surely give itself before I could stop it. Isn't that
always the way? I wanted you to feel I would be with you in the fight
if I could. They are late. Father and the missionary, Mr. Williams,
and his boy were to have been here an hour ago. I heard them talking
of your struggle against the big steals, and came up here before them
to wait. They are coming to see about changing the sheep from the Holy
Cross Range to the Rim Rocks."

"I can hear 'em coming," Wayland leaned over the precipice. "They are
coming up the switch back now. They have a turn or two to take--we
have a few minutes yet--Eleanor, best gifts come unasked: perhaps,
also, they go unsent. Listen, I couldn't Hope to keep the gift unless
I jumped in this fight for right; but it's a man's job! I mustn't
desert because of the gift! I mustn't take the prize before I finish
the job! I want you to see that--always that I mind my p's and q's and
don't swerve from that resolution. If I deserted and went down from
the Ridge to the Valley, from hard to easy, I wouldn't be worthy of--do
you understand what I am trying to say to you?"

"Not in the least. You wouldn't be worthy of what?"

"Of you," said Wayland.

"Gifts?" It was the falsetto of a boy's voice from the trail below the
Ridge. "Who's talkin' of gifts and things?"

They heard the others ascending. Her woman instinct caught at the
first straw to hand. "Photogravures, Fordie, three more to-day. They
are Watts--"

"He has to round the next turn! Never mind! He didn't hear,"
interjected Wayland irritably.

"All the same," she said, "I'm going to send one of those pictures up
to you for the cabin. There is Hope sitting on top of the World, eyes
bandaged, harp strings broken--"

"Don't send that one! Jim-jams enough of my own up here! I want my
Hope clear-eyed even if she has to go it blind for a bit as to you--"

"Then there's Faith sheathing her sword--"

"Not putting away the Big-Stick," interrupted Wayland.

"Then you'll have to take the Happy Warrior--"

"I forget that one: I've been up here four years, you know?"

"It's the Soldier asleep on the Battle-F