least, with red-and-green ingrain carpet of ancient pattern, hideous
chromos on the walls, and frantically common furniture setting up in its
shining varnish to be pretentious; but the girl had not seen it yet. She
was filled with a great homesickness that had not possessed her even
when she said good-by to her dear ones at home. She suddenly realized
that the people with whom she was to be thrown were of another world
from hers, and this one friend whom she had found in the desert was
leaving her.

She tried to shake hands formally and tell him how grateful she was to
him for rescuing her from the perils of the night, but somehow words
seemed so inadequate, and tears kept crowding their way into her throat
and eyes. Absurd it was, and he a stranger twenty hours before, and a
man of other ways than hers, besides. Yet he was her friend and rescuer.

She spoke her thanks as well as she could, and then looked up, a swift,
timid glance, and found his eyes upon her earnestly and troubled.

"Don't thank me," he said, huskily. "I guess it was the best thing I
ever did, finding you. I sha'n't forget, even if you never let me see
you again--and--I hope you will." His eyes searched hers wistfully.

"Of course," she said. "Why not?"

"I thank you," he said in quaint, courtly fashion, bending low over her
hand. "I shall try to be worthy of the honor."

And so saying, he left her and, mounting his horse, rode away into the
lengthening shadows of the afternoon.

She stood in the forlorn little room staring out of the window after her
late companion, a sense of utter desolation upon her. For the moment all
her brave hopes of the future had fled, and if she could have slipped
unobserved out of the front door, down to the station, and boarded some
waiting express to her home, she would gladly have done it then and
there.

Try as she would to summon her former reasons for coming to this wild,
she could not think of one of them, and her eyes were very near to
tears.

But Margaret Earle was not given to tears, and as she felt them smart
beneath her lids she turned in a panic to prevent them. She could not
afford to cry now. Mrs. Tanner would be returning, and she must not find
the "new schoolma'am" weeping.

With a glance she swept the meager, pretentious room, and then,
suddenly, became aware of other presences. In the doorway stood a man
and a dog, both regarding her intently with open surprise, not unmixed
with open appraise