large, square tent, with weather-faded red and blue stripes, and from
it came the cheerful sound of a woman's laughter. Half a dozen
trampish-looking Airedale terriers roused themselves languidly as they drew
nearer. One of them stood up and snarled.

"They won't hurt you," assured Aldous. "They belong to Jack Bruce and
Clossen Otto--the finest bunch of grizzly dogs in the Rockies." Another
moment, and a woman had appeared in the door. "And that is Mrs. Jack Otto,"
he added under his breath. "If all women were like her I wouldn't have
written the things you have read!"

He might have added that she was Scotch. But this was not necessary. The
laughter was still in her good-humoured face. Aldous looked at his
companion, and he found her smiling back. The eyes of the two women had
already met.

Briefly Aldous explained what had happened at Quade's, and that the young
woman was leaving on the Tete Jaune train. The good-humoured smile left
Mrs. Otto's face when he mentioned Quade.

"I've told Jack I'd like to poison that man some day," she cried. "You poor
dear, come in, I'll get you a cup of tea."

"Which always means dinner in the Otto camp," added Aldous.

"I'm not so hungry, but I'm tired--so tired," he heard the girl say as she
went in with Mrs. Otto, and there was a new and strangely pathetic note in
her voice. "I want to rest--until the train goes."

He followed them in, and stood for a moment near the door.

"There's a room in there, my dear," said the woman, drawing back a curtain.
"Make yourself at home, and lie down on the bed until I have the tea
ready."

When the curtain had closed behind her, John Aldous spoke in a low voice to
the woman.

"Will you see her safely to the train, Mrs. Otto?" he asked. "It leaves at
a quarter after two. I must be going."

He felt that he had sufficiently performed his duty. He left the tent, and
paused for a moment outside to touzle affectionately the trampish heads of
the bear dogs. Then he turned away, whistling. He had gone a dozen steps
when a low voice stopped him. He turned. Joanne had come from the door.

For one moment he stared as if something more wonderful than anything he
had ever seen had risen before him. The girl was bareheaded, and she stood
in a sun mellowed by a film of cloud. Her head was piled with lustrous
coils of gold-brown hair that her hat and veil had hidden. Never had he
looked upon such wonderful hair, crushed and crumpled back from her smo