nge region of monuments and now
they claimed something of her. Just as wonderful was Wildfire's love
for her. The great stallion hated Slone and loved Lucy. Of all the
remarkable circumstances she had seen or heard about a horse, this fact
was the most striking. She could do anything with him. All that
savageness and wildness disappeared when she approached him. He came at
her call. He whistled at sight of her. He sent out a ringing blast of
disapproval when she rode away. Every day he tried to bite or kick
Slone, but he was meek under Lucy's touch.

But this morning there came to Lucy the first vague doubt of herself.
Once entering her mind, that doubt became clear. And then she vowed she
liked Slone as she might a brother. And something within her accused
her own conviction. The conviction was her real self, and the
accusation was some other girl lately born in her. Lucy did not like
this new person. She was afraid of her. She would not think of her
unless she had to.

"I never cared for him--that way," she said, aloud. "I don't--I
couldn't--ever--I--I--love Lin Slone!"

The spoken thought--the sound of the words played havoc with Lucy's
self-conscious calmness. She burned. She trembled. She was in a rage
with herself. She spurred Sarchedon into a run and tore through the
sage, down into the valley, running him harder than she should have run
him. Then she checked him, and, penitent, petted him out of all
proportion to her thoughtlessness. The violent exercise only heated her
blood and, if anything, increased this sudden and new torment. Why had
she discarded her boy's rider outfit and chaps for a riding-habit made
by her aunt, and one she had scorned to wear? Some awful, accusing
voice thundered in Lucy's burning ears that she had done this because
she was ashamed to face Lin Slone any more in that costume--she wanted
to appear different in his eyes, to look like a girl. If that shameful
suspicion was a fact why was it---what did it mean? She could not tell,
yet she was afraid of the truth.

All of a sudden Lin Slone stood out clearer in her mental vision--the
finest type of a rider she had ever known--a strong, lithe, magnificent
horseman, whose gentleness showed his love for horses, whose roughness
showed his power--a strange, intense, lonely man in whom she had
brought out pride, gratitude, kindness, passion, and despair. She felt
her heart swell at the realization that she had changed him, made him
kinder, m