of
her, as he had seen her last, rose before his eyes, and he found it a
pleasant recollection. He, whose life since childhood had been passed
in the outposts and beyond them, treasured the memories of the few
occasions when chance had permitted him to sit with his own kind, to
talk to them, to live as he would have lived had not fate forced him to
hoe his own row, and chosen for him a row in the new lands.

Of the women he had met in these rare incursions he could recall none
who pleased him as well as Clyde Burnaby. Her interest in his affairs
pleased him also. He recalled her as she had sat across the aisle in
the Pullman, her absolute frigidity to the advances of the would-be
Lothario, her haughty stare when she had suspected him of like intent,
her perfect composure during the holdup. Little things like that showed
the stuff a girl was made of. Nothing foolish or nervous or hysterical
about her. And then, subsequently, when he had met her on her own
ground, she had endeavoured to put him at his ease. Funny that, but he
appreciated it, nevertheless. And she could talk. She didn't giggle and
ask inane questions. Nor did she treat him as some sort of a natural
curiosity, who might be expected to do something shocking but
entertaining at any moment. She was sensible as--well--as sensible as
Sheila McCrae herself.

And that, Casey reflected, was by way of being a high compliment; for
Sheila had more sense than most men. He would take her opinion on any
subject as well worth consideration. She and Clyde Burnaby were two
young women very much above the ordinary run--in his opinion, at least.

Idly he wondered if chance would ever bring them together. Unlikely.
Because he had nothing else to do at the moment, he amused himself by a
process of transposition, of transmigration. He imagined Clyde Burnaby
in Sheila's place, riding Beaver Boy over the brown swells, along the
narrow trails and abrupt rises of the foothills, raising several
hundred chickens, helping with the housework, the mending--all the
daily feminine chores that fell to the lot of a rancher's womenkind.
Would she be as good a friend to him as Sheila had been? And he fancied
Sheila in her place--tailor-mades and evening gowns instead of riding
skirts, Paris instead of pony hats, with nothing in particular to do
but have a good time and spend money. Make good? Of course she would.
She was clean-cut, thoroughbred, smart as a whip. Perhaps she wasn't
quite as