Every moment
I've been dreading to see you bounced out."

"That's the fun of it," she declared, her cheeks aglow and eyes
sparkling with delight.

"But the road is so rough!" he protested. "Wouldn't it be easier for
you to ride my pony? He's like a rocking-chair."

"No," she refused. But she smiled, by no means ill pleased at his
solicitude for her comfort. She halted the broncos, and said
cordially: "Tie the saddle hawsses to the back rail, and pile in. We
may as well be sociable."

He hastened to accept the invitation. She moved over to the left side
of the seat and relinquished the lines to him. With most young ladies
this would have been a matter-of-course proceeding; from so
accomplished a horsewoman it was a tactful compliment. He appreciated
it at its full value, and his mood lightened. They rattled gayly
along, on across the flats, up and down among the pinyon clad hills,
and through the sage and greasewood of the valleys.

He had thought the country a desolate wilderness; but now it seemed
a Garden of Eden. Never had the girl's loveliness been more
intoxicating, never had her manner to him been more charming and
gracious. He could not resist the infection of her high spirits. For
the greater part of the trip he gave himself over to the delight of
her merry eyes and dimpling, rosy cheeks, her adorable blushes and
gay repartee.

All earthly journeys and joys have an ending. The buckboard creaked up
over the round of the last and highest hill, and they came in sight of
the little shack town down across the broad valley. Though five miles
away, every house, every telegraph pole, even the thin lines of the
railroad rails appeared through the dry clear air as distinct as a
miniature painting. Miles beyond, on the far side of the valley,
uprose the huge bulk of Split Peak, with its white-mantled shoulders
and craggy twin peaks.

But neither Ashton nor Isobel exclaimed on this magnificent view of
valley and peak. Each fell silent and gazed soberly down at the dozen
scattered shacks that marked the end of their outward trip. Rapidly
the gravity of Ashton's face deepened to gloom and from gloom to
dejection. The horses would have broken into a lope on the down grade.
He held them to a walk.

Chancing to gaze about and see his face, the girl started from her
bright-eyed daydream. "Why, Lafe! what is it?" she inquired. "You look
as you did the other day, when you brought the mail."

"It's--everything!" he mutt