ch concession in return. I hope you will not think me
presumptuous, but I do not plead now for my happiness, but for yours. Is
this irrevocable? Are--you--sure?"

He said the last words so slowly and deliberately that she felt that
each of them was cutting the very rock from underneath her. She knew
she was at a junction point in her life, and her mind strove to quickly
appraise the situation. On one side was this man who had for her so
strange and so powerful an appeal. It was only by sheer force of will
that she could hold herself aloof from him. But he was a man who had
broken with his family and quarrelled with her father--a man whom her
father would certainly not for a moment consider as a son-in-law. He
was a foreman; practically a ranch hand. Neither Zen nor her father were
snobs, and if Grant worked for a living, so did Transley. That was not
to be counted against him. The point was, what kind of living did he
earn? What Transley had to offer was perhaps on a lower plane, but
it was more substantial. It had been approved by her father, and her
mother, and herself. It wasn't as though one man were good and the other
bad; it wasn't as though one thing were right and the other wrong. It
would have been easy then....

"I have promised," she said at last.

She released her hands from his, and, sitting down, silently put on her
stocking and boot. She was aware that he was still standing near, as
though waiting to be formally dismissed. She walked by him to her horse
and put her foot in the stirrup. Then she looked at him and gave her
hand a little farewell wave.

Then a great pang, irresistible in its yearning, swept over her. She
drew her foot from the stirrup, and, rushing down, threw her arms about
his neck....

"I must go," she said. "I must go. We must both go and forget."

And Dennison Grant continued his way down the valley while Zen rode back
to the Y.D., wondering if she could ever forget.

CHAPTER X

Linder scratched his tousled brown hair reflectively as he gazed after
the retreating form of Transley. His hat was off, and the perspiration
stood on his sunburned face--a face which, in point of handsomeness,
needed make no apology to Transley.

"Well, by thunder!" said Linder; "by thunder, think of that!"

Linder stood for some time, thinking "of that" as deeply as his somewhat
disorganized mental state would permit. For Transley had announced, with
his usual directness, that he wanted so ma