stood perfectly still and waited. A man would have hurried forward
to meet this deliverance, so unexpectedly vouchsafed. But she was too
excited, too uncertain--too much of a girl. Then presently, when the
horseman was still a hundred yards away, her heart abruptly turned over
in her bosom.

The man on the horse was Van. She knew him--knew that impudent pose,
that careless grace and oneness with his broncho! She did not know he
was chasing that flying roof which had frightened her horse from her
side; that he had bought an old cabin, far from his claim, to move it
to the "Laughing Water" ground--only to see it wrenched from his hold
by the mighty gale and flung across the world. She knew nothing of
this, but she suddenly knew how glad was her whole tingling being, how
bounding was the blood in her veins! And she also knew, abruptly, that
now if ever she must play the man. She had all but forgotten she was
angry with Van. That, and a hundred reasons more, made it absolutely
imperative now that he should not know her for herself!

She made a somewhat wild attempt at a toilet of her hair--in case the
wind had ripped the tell-tale strands from beneath her hat. Then with
utter faintness in her being, and weakness in her knees, she prepared
to give him reception.

He had slowed his horse to a walk. He rode up deliberately,
scrutinizing in obvious puzzlement the figure before him in the sand.

"Hullo," he said, while still a rod away, "what in blazes are you doing
here, man--are you lost?"

Beth nodded. "I'm afraid I am." Her utterance was decidedly girlish,
and quavering.

"Lost your voice somewhere, too, I reckon," said Van. "Where are you
going? Where are you from?"

"Starlight," answered Beth, at a loss for a better reply, and making an
effort to deepen her tones as she talked. "I lost my horse in the
storm."

Van looked around the valley.

"Did, hey? Didn't happen to see a stray roof, anywhere, did you? I
lost one."

"I--haven't seen anything," faltered Both, whose only wish was to have
him say something about her escape from this terrible place. "But
something frightened my pony."

"I was curious to see how far that roof would hike, that's all," he
told her by way of explanation of his presence here on his horse, and
he turned to look at her again. "Didn't you know this so-called
cut-off to Starlight would take you more time than the road?"

"No, I--I didn't know it," said Beth, afraid