scornfully indifferent to his advances. Almost rudely she
rejected his gratitude.

"The man does not owe me anything. Can't he see that honors are easy?"
she said impatiently to Lady Farquhar.

Jack Kilmeny was no quitter. He set that lean jaw of his and would not
accept repulse. In four days now the Farquhar party was going to leave
Goldbanks and he made the most of his time.

Moya never saw him coming toward her without having her pulses stirred,
but her look met his always quietly and steadily. Not once did she give
him a chance to see her alone. Even Lady Farquhar, who had been a severe
critic of her vagaries, commended now her discretion. Jack rebelled
against it in vain. He could not find a chance to speak. It was
characteristic of him that he made one.

By shrewd maneuvering he arranged an expedition to the Silent Sam mine.
The property itself was of no particular interest. The attractive
feature was a descent in ore buckets from the shaft-house, perched far
up on the edge of a precipitous cliff, to the mill in the valley below.
This was made by means of heavy cables to which the buckets were
suspended. After Jack had explained how the men rode back and forth by
this means between the mill and the mine India was seized with the
inspiration he had hoped for.

"Let's go down in the buckets, dear people."

Lady Farquhar protested and was overruled by a chorus of votes. The
miner assured her that it was entirely safe. Reluctantly she gave
permission for her flock to make the trip if they desired.

They rode on horseback to the mill. Jack paired with India, making no
attempt to ride beside Moya, who brought up the rear with the captain.
The Westerner, answering the questions of his cousin, was at his
debonair best. Occasionally there drifted back to the couple in the rear
fragmentary snatches of his talk. He was telling of the time he had been
a mule skinner in New Mexico, of how he had ridden mail near Deming, and
of frontier days at Tombstone. Casual anecdotes were sprinkled through
his explanations to liven them. He spoke in the slurring drawl of the
Southwest, which went so well with the brown lean face beneath the
pinched-in felt hat and the well-packed vigor of the man.

"And what is 'bucking a sample'?" India wanted to know after one of his
stories.

"You just pound some rock up and mix it to get a sample. Once when I was
drag-driver of a herd in a round-up...."

Moya heard no more. She turned her