another notwithstanding the fact
that they came from ranches scattered up and down the stage line twenty,
thirty miles apart--to be neighbors in this country means to be anywhere
within a sixty-mile ride--and they gossiped of the countryside as
minutely as the residents of a village in Wisconsin discuss their kind.
News was scarce.

The north-bound coach got away first, and as the girl came out to take
her place, Norcross said: "Won't you have my seat with the driver?"

She dropped her voice humorously. "No, thank you, I can't stand for
Bill's clack."

Norcross understood. She didn't relish the notion of being so close to
the frankly amorous driver, who neglected no opportunity to be personal;
therefore, he helped her to her seat inside and resumed his place in
front.

Bill, now broadly communicative, minutely detailed his tastes in food,
horses, liquors, and saddles in a long monologue which would have been
tiresome to any one but an imaginative young Eastern student. Bill had a
vast knowledge of the West, but a distressing habit of repetition. He was
self-conscious, too, for the reason that he was really talking for the
benefit of the girl sitting in critical silence behind him, who, though
he frequently turned to her for confirmation of some of the more
startling of his statements, refused to be drawn into controversy.

In this informing way some ten miles were traversed, the road climbing
ever higher, and the mountains to right and left increasing in grandeur
each hour, till of a sudden and in a deep valley on the bank of another
swift stream, they came upon a squalid saloon and a minute post-office.
This was the town of Moskow.

Bill, lumbering down over the wheel, took a bag of mail from the boot and
dragged it into the cabin. The girl rose, stretched herself, and said:
"This stagin' is slow business. I'm cramped. I'm going to walk on
ahead."

"May I go with you?" asked Norcross.

"Sure thing! Come along."

As they crossed the little pole bridge which spanned the flood, the
tourist exclaimed: "What exquisite water! It's like melted opals."

"Comes right down from the snow," she answered, impressed by the poetry
of his simile.

He would gladly have lingered, listening to the song of the water, but as
she passed on, he followed. The opposite hill was sharp and the road
stony, but as they reached the top the young Easterner called out, "See
the savins!"

Before them stood a grove of cedars, old, gray,