What brought
you?"

"It was Fate," he told her, leaning over the table and looking down upon
her admiringly.

She pondered his answer for a moment, then blurted out:

"You're a bluff! It may have been Fate, but I tho't you looked kind o'
funny when Rance asked you if you hadn't missed the trail an' wa'n't on
the road to see Nina Micheltorena--she that lives in the greaser
settlement an' has the name o' shelterin' thieves."

At the mention of thieves, Johnson paled frightfully and the knife which
he had been toying with dropped to the floor.

"Was it Fate or the back trail?" again queried the Girl.

"It was Fate," calmly reiterated the man, and looked her fairly in the
eye.

The cloud disappeared from the Girl's face.

"Serve the coffee, Wowkle!" she called almost instantly. And then it was
that she saw that no chair had been placed at the table for him. She
sprang to her feet, exclaiming: "Oh, Lordy, you ain't got no chair yet
to--"

"Careful, please, careful," quickly warned Johnson, as she rounded the
corner of the table upon which his guns lay.

But fear was not one of the Girl's emotions. At the display of guns that
met her gaze she merely shrugged and inquired placidly:

"Oh, how many guns do you carry?"

Not unnaturally she waited for his answer before starting in quest of a
chair for him; but instead Johnson quietly went over to the chair near
the door where his coat lay, hung it up on the peg with his hat, and
returning now with a chair, he answered:

"Oh, several when travelling through the country."

"Well, set down," said the Girl bluntly, and hurried to his side to
adjust his chair. But she did not return to her place at the table;
instead, she took the barrel rocker near the fireplace and began to rock
nervously to and fro. In silence Johnson sat studying her, looking her
through and through, as it were.

"It must be strange living all alone way up here in the mountains," he
remarked, breaking the spell of silence. "Isn't it lonely?"

"Lonely? Mountains lonely?" The Girl's laugh rang out clearly. "Besides,"
she went on, her eyes fairly dancing with excitement, "I got a little
pinto an' I'm all over the country on 'im. Finest little horse you ever
saw! If I want to I can ride right down into the summer at the foothills
with miles o' Injun pinks jest a-laffin' an' tiger lilies as mad as
blazes. There's a river there, too--the Injuns call it a water-road--an'
I can git on that an' drift a