is character--his
respect for public opinion.

"But I ain't stingy, ma'am. I reckon I've proved it. There's a difference
between bein' careful an' stingy."

"How did you prove it?"

He grinned at her. "Why, I ain't mentionin'," he said gently.

But she had heard of his generosity--from several of the men, and from
Hagar Catherson. She mentally applauded his reticence.

She learned that he had read--more than she would have thought, from his
speech--and that he had profited thereby.

"Books give the writer's opinion of things," he said. "If you read a
thoughtful book, you either agree with the writer, or you don't,
accordin' to your nature an' understandin'. None of them get things
exactly right, I reckon, for no man can know everything. He's got to fall
down, somewhere. An' so, when you read a book, you've got to do a heap of
thinkin' on your own hook, or else you'll get mistaken ideas an' go to
gettin' things mixed up. I like to do my own thinkin'."

"Are you always right?"

"Bless you, ma'am, no. I'm scarcely ever right. I'll get to believin' a
thing, an' then along will come somethin' else, an' I'll have to start
all over again. Or, I'll talk to somebody, an' find that they've got a
better way of lookin' at a thing. I reckon that's natural."

They did not go out to shoot again. Instead, they went out on the porch,
and there, sitting in the shade, they talked until the sun began to swim
low in the sky.

At last he got up, grinning.

"I've done a heap of loafin' today, ma'am. But I've certainly enjoyed
myself, talkin' to you. But if you ain't goin' to try to hit the target
any more, I reckon I'll be ridin' back to the outfit."

She got up, too, and held out her hand to him. "Thank you," she said.
"You have made the day very short for me. It would have been lonesome
here, without aunt and uncle."

"I saw them goin'," he informed her.

"And," she continued, smiling, "I am going to ask you to come again, very
soon, to teach me more about shooting."

"Any time, ma'am." He still held her hand. And now he looked at it with a
blush, and dropped it gently. Her face reddened a little too, for now she
realized that he had held her hand for quite a while, and she had made no
motion to withdraw it. Their eyes met eloquently. The gaze held for an
instant, and then both laughed, as though each had seen something in the
eyes of the other that had been concealed until this moment. Then Ruth's
drooped. Randerson smil