idden. They
called him the Kid, and thought it was his youth that made him different
from them all, for he was only twenty-four, and not one of the rest was
under forty. They were doing their best to help him get over that innate
fineness that was his natural inheritance, but although he stopped at
nothing, and played his part always with the ease of one old in the ways
of the world, yet he kept a quiet reserve about him, a kind of charm
beyond which they had not been able to go.

He was playing cards with three others at the table when the man came
in, and did not look up at the entrance.

The woman, white and hopeless, appeared at the door of the shed-room
when the man came, and obediently set about getting his supper; but her
lifeless face never changed expression.

"Brung a gal 'long of me part way," boasted the man, as he flung himself
into a seat by the table. "Thought you fellers might like t' see 'er,
but she got too high an' mighty fer me, wouldn't take a pull at th'
bottle 'ith me, 'n' shrieked like a catamount when I kissed 'er. Found
'er hangin' on th' water-tank. Got off 't th' wrong place. One o' yer
highbrows out o' th' parlor car! Good lesson fer 'er!"

The Boy looked up from his cards sternly, his keen eyes boring through
the man. "Where is she now?" he asked, quietly; and all the men in the
room looked up uneasily. There was that tone and accent again that made
the Boy alien from them. What was it?

The man felt it and snarled his answer angrily. "Dropped 'er on th'
trail, an' threw her fine-lady b'longin's after 'er. 'Ain't got no use
fer thet kind. Wonder what they was created fer? Ain't no good to
nobody, not even 'emselves." And he laughed a harsh cackle that was not
pleasant to hear.

The Boy threw down his cards and went out, shutting the door. In a few
minutes the men heard two horses pass the end of the bunk-house toward
the trail, but no one looked up nor spoke. You could not have told by
the flicker of an eyelash that they knew where the Boy had gone.

She was sitting in the deep shadow of a sage-bush that lay on the edge
of the trail like a great blot, her suit-case beside her, her breath
coming short with exertion and excitement, when she heard a cheery
whistle in the distance. Just an old love-song dating back some years
and discarded now as hackneyed even by the street pianos at home; but
oh, how good it sounded!

From the desert I come to thee!

The ground was cold, and st