orses. Alice watched for a moment as he walked up to his own horse,
stroked his neck, and lightly cuffed at the ears which the horse laid
back as he playfully snapped at his master's hand. Then she scrambled
from her hiding-place and hurried unobserved to her tent, where she
threw herself upon the blankets with a sound that was somehow very like
a sob.

When the breakfast of cold coffee and biscuits was finished the Texan
watched Endicott's clumsy efforts to roll a cigarette.

"Better get you a piece of twine to do it with, Win," he grinned; "you
sure are a long ways from home when it comes to braidin' a smoke. Saw
a cow-hand do it once with one hand. In a show, it was in Cheyenne,
an' he sure was some cowboy--in the show. Come out onto the flats one
day where the boys was breakin' a bunch of Big O Little O
horses--'after local colour,' he said." The Texan paused and grinned
broadly. "Got it too. He clum up into the middle of a wall-eyed
buckskin an' the doc picked local colour out of his face for two hours
where he'd slid along on it--but he could roll a cigarette with one
hand. There, you got one at last, didn't you? Kind of humped up in
the middle like a snake that's swallowed a frog, but she draws all
right, an' maybe it'll last longer than a regular one." He turned to
Alice who had watched the operation with interest.

"If you-all don't mind a little rough climbin', I reckon, you'd count
the view from the rim-rocks yonder worth seein'."

"Oh, I'd love it!" cried the girl, as she scrambled to her feet.

"Come on, Win," called the Texan, "I'll show you where God dumped the
tailin's when He finished buildin' the world."

Together the three scaled the steep rock-wall. Alice, scorning
assistance, was the first to reach the top, and once more the splendour
of the magnificent waste held her speechless.

For some moments they gazed in silence. Before them, bathed in a pale
amethyst haze that thickened to purple at the far-off edge of the
world, lay the bad lands resplendent under the hot glare of the sun in
vivid red and black and pink colouring of the lava rock. Everywhere
the eye met the flash and shimmer of mica fragments that sparkled like
the facets of a million diamonds, while to the northward the Bear Paws
reared cool and green, with the grass of the higher levels reaching
almost to the timber line.

"Isn't it wonderful?" breathed the girl. "Why do people stay cooped up
in the cities, when ou