"Collie!" she whispered, and the touch of her fingers on his arm was as
the touch of fire,--"Collie!"

She drew one of her little gray gauntlets from her belt. "Here," she
said, and the word was a caress.

But he put the proffered token away from him with a trembling hand.
"Don't!" he cried. "I tried not to want you! I did try! This
morning--before I told you--I could have knelt and prayed to your glove.
But now, Louise, Louise Lacharme, I can't. That glove would burn me and
drive me wild to come back to you."

"To come back to you ...?" The words sung themselves through her
consciousness. "Come back to you...." He was going away. "You care so
much?" she asked. There was a new light in her eyes. Her face was almost
colorless. So she had looked when Saunders threatened her. She swayed in
the saddle. Collie's arm was about her. She raised one arm and flung it
round his neck, drawing his face down to her trembling lips. Then she
drew away, her face burning.

Across the end of the canon a vagrant sunbeam ran like a bridge of faery
gold. It pelted the gray wall with a million particles of mellow fire.
It flickered, flashed anew, and faded. The ponies drew apart. The colt
Yuma grew restless.

"Good-bye," murmured Louise.

"Like the sunshine," he said, pointing to the cliff.

"It is gone," she whispered, shivering a little as the shadows drew
down.

"It will shine again," he said, smiling.

Without a word she touched Black Boyar with the spurs. A stone clattered
down as he leaped forward, and she was gone.

Collie curbed the colt Yuma, who would have followed. "No, little
hummingbird," he said whimsically. "We aren't so used to heaven that we
can ride out of it quite so fast."

* * * * *

Next morning, with blanket and slicker rolled behind his saddle, he rode
down the Moonstone Canon Trail. At the foot of the range he turned
eastward, a new world before him. The far hills, hiding the desert
beyond, bulked large and mysterious.

Louise had not been present when he bade good-bye to his Moonstone
friends.

CHAPTER XXV

IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS

The afternoon of the third day out from the Moonstone Ranch, Collie
picketed the roan pony Yuma near a water-hole in the desert. He spread
his saddle-blankets, rolled a cigarette, and smoked. Presently he rose
and took some food from a saddle-pocket.

The pony, unused to the desert, fretted and sniffed at the sagebrush
with