fidence, then a hundred, then myriad invisibles
chanted to their beloved night or gossiped of the mystery of stars.

Then Night crept from the deep, cool canons to the starlit peaks and
knelt with her sister hill-folk, Silence and Solitude; knelt, listening
with bowed head to that ancient antiphony of thankfulness and praise;
then rose and faced the western sea.

Boyar, the black pony, shook his head with a silvery jingling of
rein-chains. His sleek flanks glistened in the moonlight. Louise curbed
him gently with hand and voice as he stepped through the wide gateway of
the ranch.

He paced lightly across the first shallow ford. Then the narrowing walls
of the canon echoed his clean-cut steps--a patter of phantom hoof-beats
following him, stride for stride. Down the long, ever-winding road they
swung.

Louise, impelled to dreams by the languorous warm night and Boyar's easy
stride up the steep, touched his neck with the rein and turned him into
the Old Meadow Trail.

The tall, slender stems of the yucca and infrequent clumps of dwarfed
cacti cast clear-edged shadows on the bare, moonlit ground. Boyar,
sniffing, suddenly swung up and pivoted, his fore feet hanging over
sheer black emptiness. Louise leaned forward, reining him round. Even
before his fore feet touched the trail again, she heard the sibilant
_bur-r-ing_ of the cold, uncoiling thing as it slid down the blind
shadows of the hillside.

"I shan't believe in omens," she murmured.

She reassured the trembling Boyar, who fretted sideways and snorted as
he passed the spot where the snake had been coiled in the trail.

At the edge of the Old Meadow the girl dismounted, allowing Boyar to
graze at will.

She climbed to the low rounded rock, her erstwhile throne of dreams,
where she sat with knees gathered to her in her clasped hands. The pony
paused in his grazing to lift his head and look at her with gently
wondering eyes.

The utter solitude of the place, far above the viewless valley, allowed
her thought a horizon impossible at the Moonstone Rancho. Alone she
faced the grave question of making an unalterable choice. Collie had
asked her to marry him. She had evaded direct reply to his direct
question. She knew of no good reason why she should marry him. She knew
of no better reason why she should not. She thought she was content with
being loved. She was, for the moment.

The Old Meadow, that had once before revealed a sprightly and ragged
romance, sl