hich was in turn so flatly contradicted by every
other line of her careworn face that it seemed gratuitously artificial.
Her figure was hidden by a shapeless garment that partook equally of the
shawl, cloak, and wrapper.

"I am very foolish," she began, in a voice and accent that at once
asserted a cultivated woman, "but I so seldom meet anybody here that a
voice quite startled me. That, and the heat," she went on, wiping her
face, into which the color was returning violently--"for I seldom go out
as early as this--I suppose affected me."

Mr. Bowers had that innate Far-Western reverence for womanhood which
I fancy challenges the most polished politeness. He remained patient,
undemonstrative, self-effacing, and respectful before her, his angular
arm slightly but not obtrusively advanced, the offer of protection being
in the act rather than in any spoken word, and requiring no response.

"Like as not, ma'am," he said, cheerfully looking everywhere but in her
burning face. "The sun IS pow'ful hot at this time o' day; I felt it
myself comin' yer, and, though the damp of this timber kinder sets it
back, it's likely to come out ag'in. Ye can't check it no more than the
sap in that choked limb thar"--he pointed ostentatiously where a fallen
pine had been caught in the bent and twisted arm of another, but which
still put out a few green tassels beyond the point of impact. "Do you
live far from here, ma'am?" he added.

"Only as far as the first turning below the hill."

"I've got my buggy here, and I'm goin' that way, and I can jist set ye
down thar cool and comfortable. Ef," he continued, in the same assuring
tone, without waiting for a reply, "ye'll jist take a good grip of
my arm thar," curving his wrist and hand behind him like a shepherd's
crook, "I'll go first, and break away the brush for ye."

She obeyed mechanically, and they fared on through the thick ferns in
this fashion for some moments, he looking ahead, occasionally dropping
a word of caution or encouragement, but never glancing at her face.
When they reached the buggy he lifted her into it carefully,--and
perpendicularly, it struck her afterwards, very much as if she had been
a transplanted sapling with bared and sensitive roots,--and then gravely
took his place beside her.

"Bein' in the timber trade myself, ma'am," he said, gathering up the
reins, "I chanced to sight these woods, and took a look around. My name
is Bowers, of Mendocino; I reckon there ai