"I know something of his weakness," Zen replied. "I have already been
honored with a proposal."

Transley looked in her face. It was slightly flushed, whether with the
summer sun or with her confession, but it was a wonderfully good face to
look in.

"Zen," he said, in a low voice that Y.D. and the others might not hear,
"how would you take a serious proposal, made seriously by one who loves
you, and who knows that you are, and always will be, a queen among
women?"

"If you had been a cow puncher instead of a contractor," she told him,
"I'm sure you would long ago have ended your life in some dash over a
cutbank."

Meanwhile Drazk pursued his way to town. The trail, after crossing the
ford, turned abruptly to the right from that which led across country to
the North Y.D. For a mile or more it skirted the stream in a park-like
drive through groves of spruce and cottonwood. Sunshine and the babble
of water everywhere filled the air. Sunshine, too, filled George Drazk's
heart. The importance of his mission was pleasantly heavy upon him. He
pictured the impression he would make in town, galloping in with his
horse wet over the back, and rushing to the implement agency with all
the importance of a courier from Y.D. He would let two of the boys take
Pete to the stable, and then, seated on a mower seat in the shade, he
would tell the story. It would lose nothing in the telling. He would
even add how Zen had thrown a kiss at him in parting. Perhaps he would
have Zen kiss him on the cheek before the whole camp. He turned that
possibility over in his mind, weighing nicely the credulity of his
imaginary audience.... At any rate, whether he decided to put that in
the story or not, it was very pleasant to think about.

Presently the trail turned abruptly up a gully leading into the hills.
A huge cutbank, jutting into the river, barred the way in front, and
its precipitous side, a hundred feet or more in height, kept continually
crumbling and falling into the stream. These cutbanks are a terror to
inexperienced riders. The valleys are swallowed up in the tawny sameness
of the ranges; the vision catches only the higher levels, and one
may gallop to the verge of a precipice before becoming aware of
its existence. It was to this that Zen had referred in speaking of
Transley's precipitateness.

Drazk followed the gully up into the hills, letting his horse drop back
to a walk in the hard going along the dry bed of a stream which fl