ept your
back so long toward us. Now, however, since you've repented and ceased
to neglect us, I shall call it after someone else. Perhaps after the
stage-driver who takes our letters down to Kennard; he sits hunched up
like that. I'll seek a much nicer rock to represent you."

"That's wholly unnecessary, for I intend to keep before your eyes in
person."

"Which will be the nicest of all," said she, smiling.

He continued to gaze at her, to listen to her voice, with a pleasure
he made no effort to conceal. And she, on her part, seemed to
surrender herself to the enjoyment of the moment; her eyes remaining
longer on his, her tones softening to a slow, tender utterance almost
carrying a caress, her face keeping its languorous smile; as if the
honey-sweet fragrance from the unseen flowers had invaded her spirit.

A pause came in their talk. They sat unmoving, without stir of hand or
head, quiescent. Then Lee all at once experienced a feeling of
profound compassion for Ruth as he regarded her, a poignant stab in
his breast like pain. Sitting there without movement, with her hands
idle upon her lap, with her face a little lifted and her eyes
wistfully bent on the great wall opposite, she seemed so young and
small to be dwelling at such a place, so helpless, so solitary, that
her presence appeared a cruel irony of fate. Her homesteading was a
desperate clutch at security; and her situation was utterly different
from that of her friend, Imogene Martin, who viewed the matter as in
the nature of a health-seeking holiday, and who was sustained by the
knowledge that she had wealthy relations at Kennard to whom she could
return. Far different, indeed. At the thought of the homesickness that
at times Ruth must know, of the lonesomeness of mountain and mesa from
which she must suffer, of the deprivations, the hard bareness of the
life, the moments of despair, he had a sensation of the bitter
unfairness of things and a desire to snatch her safe away from the
harsh pass in which she stood. It would be only right, it would be
only just.

When presently she looked about and found his eyes rapt on her face, a
quick blush spread over her throat and cheeks.

"I think--think we should go home now," she said, with a catch of her
breath.

"Yes," said he, rising.

He leaped the log on which they had been sitting and then put up a
hand to help her mount. Holding his fingers she raised herself upon
the tree trunk. But suddenly the bark