his decision he would have given, in common
politeness, to anyone who pointed at the danger sign before he rode over
the precipice.

"May I ride down with you, or shall I go ahead?" he inquired, after he
had assisted her to mount.

"With me!" she answered, quickly. "You are safe while you are with me."

The decisive turn to her mobile lips and the faint wrinkles of a frown,
coming and going in various heraldry, formed a vividly sentient and
versatile expression of emotions while she watched his silhouette against
the sky as he turned to get his own pony.

"Come, P.D.--come along!" he called.

In answer to his voice an equine face, peculiarly reflective of trail
wisdom, bony and large, particularly over the eyes, slowly turned toward
its master. P.D. was considering.

"Come along! The trail, P.D.!" And P.D. came, but with democratic
independence, taking his time to get into motion. "He is never fast,"
Jack explained, "but once he has the motor going, he keeps at it all day.
So I call him P.D. without the Q., as he is never quick."

"Pretty Damn, you mean!" she exclaimed, with a certain spontaneous pride
of understanding. Then she flushed in confusion.

"Oh, thank you! It was so human of you to translate it out loud! It isn't
profane. Look at him now. Don't you think it is a good name for him?"
Jack asked, seriously.

"I do!"

She was laughing again, oblivious of the impending tragedy.

III

JACK RIDES IN COMPANY

Let not the Grundy woman raise an eyebrow of deprecation at the informal
introduction of Jack and Mary, or we shall refute her with her own
precepts, which make the steps to a throne the steps of the social
pyramid. If she wishes a sponsor, we name an impeccable majesty of the
very oldest dynasty of all, which is entirely without scandal. We remind
her of the ancient rule that people who meet at court, vouched for by
royal favor, need no introduction.

These two had met under the roof of the Eternal Painter. His palette is
somewhere in the upper ether and his head in the interplanetary spaces.
His heavy eyebrows twinkle with star-dust. Dodging occasional flying
meteors, which harass him as flies harass a landscapist out of doors on a
hot day, he is ever active, this mighty artist of the changing desert
sky. So fickle his moods, so versatile his genius, so quick to creation
his fancy, that he never knows what his next composition will be till the
second that it is begun.

No earthly r