struck furiously at the
dog, and missed; struck again, leaped from his horse, and pursued it,
striking and kicking, so that the terrified creature ran for its life,
and Kate cried out, "Stop, Basil, stop. What are you doing? Stop, I
say!"

He came back to her, cursing, an ugly line between his brows. "Got away,
damn the luck! I almost--Why, Kate! Tears? Oh, good Lord," he laughed,
still frowning. "You're as soft as Jacques Benoix!"

She mastered the tears; mastered, too, a strange little fear at her
heart, thinking proudly, "He came when I called! He stopped when I
called!"

Aloud she said, "It was the sun that made my eyes water. Who is Jacques
Benoix?"

He told her about his neighbor, a stranger--"the only gentleman within
ten miles of us, so you'll have to be friends with him"--a man so
soft-hearted that he would not hunt foxes or rabbits; a man who broke
his colts without the whip, and was trying to break a son the same way.

"More fool he, coming up here out of a city and trying to teach _us_ to
break colts!"

"Has he a wife?"

Kildare gave his great laugh. "You don't suppose a man as soft as that
would have escaped? The woman's sickly--of course! That's why he married
her, and that's why he has come up here. Gave up a big practice in New
Orleans, they say, because he thought it would be healthier here. So it
is! Too damned healthy for him, I reckon! We don't need more than one
doctor around Storm, and old Doc Jones has got a corner on the births
and deaths already. Yes, Benoix is rather a fool. But he's got his uses.
He'll play poker for twenty-four hours at a stretch, and drink--Lord!"
said Kildare, admiringly. "I don't know where the little fellow puts it
all!"

It was at the next crossroads that they found Benoix waiting; a slender,
rather foreign-looking man, very carefully dressed, with a stiff little
bouquet of geraniums in his hands. For the first time Kate's direct
young gaze met the eyes whose blueness, in their dark setting, was a
never-failing surprise to her. They held hers steadily for a moment; it
seemed to her that they had already talked together before he spoke.

"I bring to Mrs. Kildare the first fruits from her kingdom," he said,
offering the little bouquet.

"Flowers from Storm?" laughed Basil, incredulously. "Where'd you get
them? You're a wizard, Jacques! I never saw any flowers at Storm."

"You were not looking for them, my friend. Now you will look!" Benoix'
smile was a gleam