e valleys, scrutinizing rock ledges. She would
visit the Samuelson ranch, and find out about the horse raid, and
inquire after Mr. Samuelson, and then--well, there would be plenty of
time to decide what to do then. But first, she would swing around by
the little tent beside the creek and see if Vil Holland had returned.
Surely, he must have returned by this time, and she must tell him how
it was she had been riding with the horses--and, she must give him
back his glove. She blushed as she felt the pressure of its soft bulk
where it rested just below her heart. Surely, he would need his
glove--and maybe, if she were nice to him, he would tell her how it
came to be there--and maybe he would explain--_this_. Her horse had
stopped voluntarily after his steep climb, and she glanced down at the
trampled grass, and from that to her own little cabin far below on
Monte's Creek.

She wondered, as she rode through the timber how it was she had been
so quick to doubt this grave, unsmiling hillman upon such a mere
triviality as the finding of a glove. And then she wondered at her
changed attitude toward him. She had feared him at first, then
despised him. And now--she recalled with a thrill, the lean ruggedness
of him, the unwavering eyes and the unsmiling lips--now, at least, she
respected him, and she no longer wondered why the people of the hills
and the people of the town held him in regard. She knew that he had
never sought to curry her favor--had never deviated a hair's breadth
from the even tenor of his way in order to win her regard and, in
their chance conversations, he had been blunt even to rudeness. And,
yet, against her will, her opinion of him had changed. And this change
had nothing whatever to do with her timely rescue from the horse
herd--it had been gradual, so gradual that it had been an accomplished
fact even before she suspected that any change was taking place.

The huge rock behind which nestled the little tent loomed before her,
and hastily removing the glove from its hiding place, she came
suddenly upon his camp. A blackened coffee pot was nestled close
against a tiny fire upon which a pair of trout and some strips of
bacon sizzled in a frying pan. She glanced toward the creek, at the
same moment that Vil Holland turned at the sound of her horse's
footsteps, and for several seconds they faced each other in silence.
The man was the first to speak:

"Good mornin'. If you'll step back around that rock for a