ouched in the grass, now nibbling, now laying long ears flat
and watching the dogs.

Venters's swift glance took in the brightening valley, and Bess and her
pets, and Ring and Whitie. It swept over all to return again and rest
upon the girl. She had changed. To the dark trousers and blouse she had
added moccasins of her own make, but she no longer resembled a boy.
No eye could have failed to mark the rounded contours of a woman. The
change had been to grace and beauty. A glint of warm gold gleamed from
her hair, and a tint of red shone in the clear dark brown of cheeks. The
haunting sweetness of her lips and eyes, that earlier had been illusive,
a promise, had become a living fact. She fitted harmoniously into that
wonderful setting; she was like Surprise Valley--wild and beautiful.

Venters leaped out of his cave to begin the day.

He had postponed his journey to Cottonwoods until after the passing of
the summer rains. The rains were due soon. But until their arrival and
the necessity for his trip to the village he sequestered in a far corner
of mind all thought of peril, of his past life, and almost that of the
present. It was enough to live. He did not want to know what lay hidden
in the dim and distant future. Surprise Valley had enchanted him. In
this home of the cliff-dwellers there were peace and quiet and solitude,
and another thing, wondrous as the golden morning shaft of sunlight,
that he dared not ponder over long enough to understand.

The solitude he had hated when alone he had now come to love. He was
assimilating something from this valley of gleams and shadows. From this
strange girl he was assimilating more.

The day at hand resembled many days gone before. As Venters had no tools
with which to build, or to till the terraces, he remained idle. Beyond
the cooking of the simple fare there were no tasks. And as there were no
tasks, there was no system. He and Bess began one thing, to leave it;
to begin another, to leave that; and then do nothing but lie under the
spruces and watch the great cloud-sails majestically move along the
ramparts, and dream and dream. The valley was a golden, sunlit world.
It was silent. The sighing wind and the twittering quail and the singing
birds, even the rare and seldom-occurring hollow crack of a sliding
weathered stone, only thickened and deepened that insulated silence.

Venters and Bess had vagrant minds.

"Bess, did I tell you about my horse Wrangle?" inquired Ven