practices so
heartlessly upon men. Reid could convey her at once over the rough
summits which men and women wear their hearts threadbare to attain.
With Reid the journey would begin where, with the best hoping, it must
in his own company almost end.

"It was unlucky for Earl that he killed Matt Hall," said Joan, taking
up another thread of thought in her discursive, unfixed humor of that
day.

"It's unfortunate for any man to have to kill another, I guess. But it
has to be done sometimes."

"Matt deserved it, all right--he ought have been killed for his mean
face long ago--but it's turned Earl's head, haven't you noticed? He
thinks he's got one foot on each side of this range, herdin' everybody
between his legs."

"He'll get over it in a little while."

"He's not got brains enough to hold him down when the high winds begin
to blow. If he's a fair sample of what they've got in Omaha, I'll
cross it off my map when I begin to travel."

"Dad says he's got the lonesomeness."

"More of the cussedness."

Her words warmed Mackenzie like a precious cordial. At every one of
them in derogation of Reid his heart jumped, seeming to move him by
its tremendous vibration a little nearer to her. He felt that it was
traitorous exultation at the expense of one who had befriended him to
a limit beyond which it is hard for a man to go, but he could not
drown the exhilaration of a reborn hope in even the deepest waters of
his gratitude.

Somebody ought to tell Joan what they had designed for her in company
with Earl Reid; somebody ought to tell her, but it was not his place.
It was strange that she had read the young man's weakness so readily.
Mackenzie had noted more than once before in his life that those who
live nearest to nature are the most apt in reading all her works.

"He'll never stay here through a winter," Joan predicted, with
certainty that admitted no argument. "Give him a touch of twenty-two
below, and a snow on a high wind, and send him out to bed down the
sheep where it'll blow over them! I can see him right now. You'll do
it, all right, and I'll have to, like I have done many a time. But
we're not like Earl. Earl's got summer blood."

Mackenzie took her hand, feeling it tremble a little, seeing her face
grow pale. The sun was red on the hill, the sheep were throwing long
shadows down the slope as they grazed lazily, some of them standing on
knees to crop the lush bunch grass.

"Yes, Joan, you and I are of