and success when love and
laughter waited for him in this peaceful valley chosen of the gods?

The fourth morning of his arrival he hobbled out to the south porch
after breakfast, to find his hostess in corduroy skirt, high laced
boots, and pinched-in sombrero. She was drawing on a pair of driving
gauntlets. One of the stable boys was standing beside a rig he had just
driven to the house.

The young woman flung a flashing smile at her guest.

"Good day, Senor Muir. I hope you had a good night's rest, and that your
knee did not greatly pain you?"

"I feel like a colt in the pasture--fit for anything. But the doctor
won't have it that way. He says I'm an invalid," returned the young man
whimsically.

"The doctor ought to know," she laughed.

"I expect it won't do me any harm to lie still for a day or two. We
Americans all have the git-up-and-dust habit. We got to keep going,
though Heaven knows what we're going for sometimes."

Though he did not know it, her interest in him was considerable, though
certainly critical. He was a type outside of her experience, and, by the
law of opposites, attracted her. Every line of him showed tremendous
driving power, force, energy. He was not without some touch of Western
swagger; but it went well with the air of youth to which his boyish
laugh and wavy, sun-reddened hair contributed.

The men of her station that she knew were of one pattern, indolent,
well-bred aristocrats, despisers of trade and of those who indulged in
it more than was necessary to live. But her mother had been an American
girl, and there was in her blood a strong impulse toward the great
nation of which her father's people were not yet in spirit entirely a
part.

"I have to drive to Antelope Springs this morning. It is not a rough
trip at all. If you would care to see the country----"

She paused, a question in her face. Her guest jumped at the chance.

"There is nothing I should like better. If you are sure it will be no
inconvenience."

"I am sure I should not have asked you if I had not wanted you," she
said; and he took it as a reproof.

She drove a pair of grays that took the road with the spirit of racers.
The young woman sat erect and handled the reins masterfully, the while
Muir leaned back and admired the steadiness of the slim, strong wrists,
the businesslike directness with which she gave herself to her work, the
glow of life whipped into her eyes and cheeks by the exhilaration of the
pa