n' a tired hoss at the end of a long day, and when you
just speak, and that tired animal lifts under you willing and hustles
along. Hosses! They're my long suit. I sure dote on hosses. Yep. I used
to be a cowboy once."

She clapped her hands in the way that tore so delightfully to his heart,
and her eyes were dancing, as she exclaimed:

"A Texas cowboy! I always wanted to see one! I heard papa say once that
cowboys are bow-legged. Are you?"

"I sure was a Texas cowboy," he answered. "But it was a long time ago.
And I'm sure bow-legged. You see, you can't ride much when you're young
and soft without getting the legs bent some. Why, I was only a
three-year-old when I begun. He was a three-year-old, too, fresh-broken.
I led him up alongside the fence, dumb to the top rail, and dropped on.
He was a pinto, and a real devil at bucking, but I could do anything
with him. I reckon he knowed I was only a little shaver. Some hosses
knows lots more 'n' you think."

For half an hour Ross Shanklin rambled on with his horse reminiscences,
never unconscious for a moment of the supreme joy that was his through
the touch of his hand on the hem of her dress. The sun dropped slowly
into the cloud bank, the quail called more insistently, and empty wagon
after empty wagon rumbled back across the bridge. Then came a woman's
voice.

"Joan! Joan!" it called. "Where are you, dear?"

The little girl answered, and Ross Shanklin saw a woman, clad in a
soft, clinging gown, come through the gate from the bungalow. She was a
slender, graceful woman, and to his charmed eyes she seemed rather to
float along than walk like ordinary flesh and blood.

"What have you been doing all afternoon?" the woman asked, as she came
up.

"Talking, mamma," the little girl replied. "I've had a very interesting
time."

Ross Shanklin scrambled to his feet and stood watchfully and awkwardly.
The little girl took the mother's hand, and she, in turn, looked at him
frankly and pleasantly, with a recognition of his humanness that was a
new thing to him. In his mind ran the thought: _the woman who ain't
afraid_. Not a hint was there of the timidity he was accustomed to
seeing in women's eyes. And he was quite aware, and never more so, of
his bleary-eyed, forbidding appearance.

"How do you do?" she greeted him sweetly and naturally.

"How do you do, ma'am," he responded, unpleasantly conscious of the
huskiness and rawness of his voice.

"And did you have an inte