the camp. This is what has saved them from
starvation. We--we should owe it gratitude."

"I don't guess the rocks need gratitude," replied Buck quietly.

"No!"

Joan looked up at the black roof above her and shivered.

"It's a weird place, where one might well expect weird happenings."

Buck smiled. He was beginning to obtain some insight into the girl's
mood. So used was he to the gloomy hill that its effect was quite lost
on him. Now he knew that some superstitious chord had been struck in
the girl's feelings, and this strange hill had been the medium of its
expression.

He suddenly leant forward. Resting on the horn of his saddle he looked
into the fair face he so loved. He had seen that haunted look in her
face before. He remembered his first meeting with her at the barn. Its
termination had troubled him then. It had troubled him since. He
remembered the incident when the gold had been presented to her. Again
he had witnessed that hunted, terrified look, that strange
overpowering of some painful thought--or memory.

Now he felt that she needed support, and strove with all his power to
afford it her.

"Guess ther's nothing weird outside the mind of man," he said.
"Anyway, nothing that needs to scare folk." He turned and surveyed the
hill and the wonderful green country surrounding them. "Get a look
around," he went on, with a comprehensive gesture. "This rock--it's
just rock, natural rock; it's rock you'll find most anywhere. It's got
dumped down right here wher' most things are green, an' dandy, an'
beautiful to the eye; so it looks queer, an' sets your thoughts
gropin' among the cobwebs of mystery. Ther's sure no life to it but
the life of rock. This great overhang has just been cut by washouts of
centuries in spring, when the creek's in flood, an' it just happens
ther's a hot sulphur lake on top, fed by a spring. I've known it these
years an' years. Guess it's sure always been the same. It ain't got
enough to it to scare a jack-rabbit."

Joan shook her head. But the man was glad to see the return of her
natural expression, and that her smiling eyes were filled with a
growing interest He knew that her strange mood was passing.

He went on at once in his most deliberate fashion.

"You needn't to shake your head," he said, with a smile of confidence.
"It's jest the same with everything. It sure is. We make life what it
is for ourselves. It's the same for everybody, an' each feller gets
busy makin' it d