lake's story is."

"You mean--?" He turned in his saddle to stare wonderingly at her. "You
don't know?"

"No." Sheila blushed confusedly. "I--I don't know anything about her--"

"Good Lord!" He whistled softly. "Sometimes those ventures turn out all
right." He looked dubious. "I'm glad I'm here!"

Sheila's smile slipped sweetly across her mouth and eyes. "So am I. But,"
she added after a thoughtful moment, "I don't know much about your story
either, do I?"

"I might say something about asking questions," began Cosme with
grimness, but changed his tone quickly with a light, apologetic touch on
her arm, "but--but I won't. I ran away from school when I was fourteen
and I've been knocking around the West ever since."

"What school?" asked Sheila.

He did not answer for several minutes. They had come to the end of the
meadow and were mounting a slope on a narrow trail where the ponies
seemed to nose their way among the trees. Now and then Sheila had to put
out her hand to push her knee away from a threatening trunk. Below were
the vivid paintbrush flowers and the blue mountain lupine and all about
the nymph-white aspens with leaves turning to restless gold against the
sky. The horses moved quietly with a slight creaking of saddles. There
was a feeling of stealth, of mystery--that tiptoe breathless expectation
of Pan pipes.... At last Cosme turned in his saddle, rested his hand on
the cantle, and looked at Sheila from a bent face with troubled eyes.

"It was an Eastern school," he said. "No doubt you've heard of it. It
was Groton."

The name here in these Wyoming woods brought a picture as foreign as the
artificiality of a drawing-room.

"Groton? You ran away?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Sheila's suspicions were returning forcibly. "I'll have to ask questions,
Mr. Hilliard, because it seems so strange--what you are now, and your
running away and never having been brought back to the East by--by
whoever it was that sent you to Groton."

"I want you to ask questions," he said rather wistfully. "You have
the right."

This forced her into something of a dilemma. She ignored it and waited,
looking away from him. He would not leave her this loophole, however.

"Why don't you look at me?" he demanded crossly.

She did, and smiled again.

"You have the prettiest smile I ever saw!" he cried; then went on
quickly, "I ran away because of something that happened. I'll tell you.
My mother"--he flushed and his eyes fell--"came u