would have plunged at once into a dissertation on a subject
upon which he considered himself an authority had not the fluttering
sheets of the letter stirred vague misgivings in his bosom.

"You aren't playing fair!" he cried. "You are telling me what is in your
letter without reading it to me."

"So I am!" She looked over page after page. "Here, this will do. It
says: 'I wish you could have been along last night when I hit the trail
for the Lower Ranch. You know what that old road looks like in the
moonlight, all deep black in the gorges, and white on the cliffs, and
not a dog-gone sound but the hoof-beats of your horse and the clank of
the bridle-chains. Why, when you come out in the open and the wind gets
to ripping 'cross the grass-fields, and the moon gets busy with every
little old blade, and there's miles of beauty stretched out far as your
eye can reach, I'd back it against any sight in the world. Only last
night I wasn't thinking much about the scenery. I was thinking--'"
Bobby stopped short, declaring that she had a cinder in her eye.

"Can't be a cinder, out here in the bay," protested Percival.

"Well, it's whatever they have out here."

"And sha'n't I ever know what your friend was thinking?"

"He was probably thinking of his dinner," said Bobby, gazing at him
reassuringly with her free eye.

After she had departed to make sure that the steamer got properly under
way, he tortured himself with suspicions. What possible secrets could
she have with this unknown friend, who waxed sentimental over moonlit
trails and wind-swept grassfields? Had not some one told him of an
unhappy love-affair? He searched his memory. Suddenly there came to him
the disturbing figure of a stalwart young man on a broncho, with leather
overalls, jingling spurs, a silk handkerchief knotted about his throat,
and a pair of keen, humorous eyes lighting up a sun-bronzed face.

Then he smiled at his quick alarm. Hadn't she told him it was one of her
foster-brothers, one of those lads whom he persisted in regarding as
children? It was the most natural thing in the world that an impulsive,
big-hearted creature like Bobby would be on terms of affectionate
intimacy with those boys with whom she had been brought up.

He did not feel fully reassured, however, until he put the question to
her flatly:

"That letter you were reading me," he said at his first opportunity--"you
won't mind telling me if it is from that chap I saw at the stat