shly, Mr. Bransford put her down, thrust his hands
into his pockets, tilted his chin and whistled an aggravating little
trill from the Rye twostep.

"Mr. Bransford!" said Ellinor haughtily.

Mr. Bransford's face expressed patient attention.

"Are you lame?"

Mr. Bransford's eye estimated the distance covered during the recent
snake episode, and then gave to Miss Hoffman a look of profound respect.
His shoulders humped up slightly; his head bowed to the stroke: he stood
upon one foot and traced the Rainbow brand in the dust with the other.

"I told you all along I wasn't hurt," he said aggrieved. "Didn't I,
now?"

"Are you lame?" she repeated severely, ignoring his truthful saying.

"'Not--very.'" The quotation marks were clearly audible.

"Are you lame at all?"

"No, ma'am--not what you might call really lame. Uh--no, ma'am."

"And you deceived me like that!" Indignation checked her. "Oh, I am so
disappointed in you! That was a fine, manly thing for you to do!"

"It was such a lovely time," observed the culprit doggedly. "And such a
chance might never happen again. And it isn't my fault I wasn't hurt,
you know. I'm sure I wish I was."

She gave him an icy glare.

"Now see what you've done! Your men haven't come and you won't stay with
Mr. Lake. How are you going to get home? Oh, I forgot--you can walk, as
you should have done at first."

The guilty wretch wilted yet further. He shuffled his feet; he writhed;
he positively squirmed. He ventured a timid upward glance. It seemed to
give him courage. Prompted, doubtless, by the same feeling which drives
one to dive headlong into dreaded cold water, he said, in a burst of
candor:

"Well, you see, ma'am, that little horse now--he really ain't got far.
He got tangled up over there a ways----"

The girl wheeled and shot a swift, startled glance at the little
eohippus on the hillside, who had long since given over his futile
struggles and was now nibbling grass with becoming resignation. She
turned back to Bransford. Slowly, scathingly, she looked him over from
head to foot and slowly back again. Her expression ran the
gamut--wonder, anger, scorn, withering contempt.

"I think I hate you!" she flamed at him.

Amazement triumphed over the other emotions then--a real amazement: the
detected impostor had resumed his former debonair bearing and met her
scornful eye with a slow and provoking smile.

"Oh, no, you don't," he said reassuringly. "On the contrary,