nd readin' it--to yourself--sometime?"

"I--think I'd rather not," said Doris hesitatingly.

Pete's face showed so plainly that he was hurt that Doris regretted her
refusal to read the letter. To make matters worse--for himself--Pete
asked that exceedingly irritating and youthful question, "Why?" which
elicits that distinctly unsatisfactory feminine answer, "Because."
That lively team "Why" and "Because" have run away with more chariots
of romance, upset more matrimonial bandwagons, and spilled more beans
than all the other questions and answers men and women have uttered
since that immemorial hour when Adam made the mistake of asking Eve why
she insisted upon his eating an apple right after breakfast.

Doris was not indifferent to his request that she read the letter, but
she was unwilling to let Pete know it, and a little fearful that he
might interpret her interest for just what it was--the evidence of a
greater solicitude for his welfare than she cared to have him know.

Pete, like most lusty sons of saddle-leather, shied at even the shadow
of sentiment--in this instance shying at his own shadow. He rode wide
of the issue, turning from the pleasant vista of who knows what
imaginings, to face the imperative challenge of immediate necessity,
which was, first, to eat something, and then to meet the man who waited
for him downstairs who, Pete surmised, was the sheriff of Sanborn
County.

"If you don't mind tellin' him I'll come down as soon as I eat," said
Pete as he pulled up a chair.

Doris nodded and turned to leave. Pete glanced up. She had not gone.
"Your letter,"--and Doris proffered the letter which he had left on the
cot. Pete was about to take it when he glanced up at her. She was
smiling at him. "You don't know how funny you look when you frown and
act--like--like a spoiled child," she laughed. "Aren't you ashamed of
yourself?"

"I--I reckon I am," said Pete, grinning boyishly.

"Ashamed of yourself?"

"Nope! A spoiled kid, like you said. And I ain't forgittin' who
spoiled me."

The letter, the man downstairs and all that his presence implied, past
and future possibilities, were forgotten in the brief glance that Doris
gave him as she turned in the doorway. And glory-be, she had taken the
letter with her! Pete gazed about the room to make sure that he was
not dreaming. No, the letter had disappeared--and but a moment ago
Doris had had it. And she still had it. "Well, she'll know I go