of flowing, irresponsible passion like a puff of burning
gunpowder, and it was over; yet it was enough. In that second was told
the tale of a human life. In that and in the surreptitious sidelong
glance following, that searched for an expression in the boyishly soft
face of his companion. But the Indian was looking straight before him,
looking as one who has seen nothing, heard nothing; and, silent as
before the interruption, they journeyed on.

A half hour slipped by, a period wherein the horses walked and galloped,
and walked again, ere the white man forgot, ere the instinct of
companionship, the necessity of conversation, urban-fostered, gained
mastery. Then as before, he looked at the other surreptitiously, through
unconsciously narrowed lids.

"I haven't yet asked your name?" he formalised baldly, curtly.

The guide showed no surprise, no consciousness of the long silence
preceding.

"The Sioux call me Ma-wa-cha-sa: the ranchers, How Landor."

Craig dropped the reins over his saddle and fumbled in his pockets.

"The Indian word has a meaning, I presume?"

"Translated into English, it would be 'the lost pappoose.'"

The eyebrows of the Easterner lifted; but he made no comment.

"You have been with my uncle, with Mr. Landor, I mean, long?"

"Since I can remember--almost."

The search within the checkered blouse ended. The inquisitor produced a
pipe and lit it. It took three matches.

"My uncle never wrote me of that. He told me once of adopting a girl.
Bess he called her, was it not?"

"Yes."

Already the pipe had gone dead, and Craig struggled anew in getting it
alight, with the awkwardness of one unused to smoking out of doors.

"Do you like this country, this--desert?" he digressed suddenly.

"It is the only one I know."

"You mean know well, doubtless?"

"I have never been outside the State."

Unconsciously the other shrugged, in an action that was habitual.

"You have something to look forward to then. I read somewhere that it
were better to hold down six feet of earth in an Eastern cemetery than
to own a section of land in the West. I'm beginning to believe it."

No comment.

"I suppose you will leave though, some time," pressed the visitor. "You
certainly don't intend to vegetate here always?"

"I never expect to leave. I was born here. I shall die here."

Once more the shoulders of the Easterner lifted in mute thanksgiving of
fundamental difference. Of a sudden, for some indefinit