stioned.

"Why, to be there!" Beatrice opened her big eyes at him. "That," she
declared whimsically, "is the top of the world, and it is mine. I found
it. I want to go up there and look down."

"It's an unmerciful climb," Keith demurred hypocritically, to strengthen
her resolution.

"All the better. I don't value what comes easily."

"You won't see anything, except more hills."

"I love hills--and more hills."

"You're a long way from home, and it's after one o'clock."

"I have a lunch with me, and I often stay out until dinner time."

Keith gave a sigh that shook the saddle, making up, in volume, what
it lacked in sincerity. The blood in him was a-jump at the prospect of
leading his Heart's Desire up next the clouds--up where the world was
yet young. A man in love is fond of self-torture.

"I have not said you must go." Beatrice answered with the sigh.

"You don't have to," he retorted. "It is a self evident fact. Who wants
to go prowling around these hills by night, with a lantern that smokes
an' has an evil smell, losing sleep and yowling like a bunch of coyotes,
hunting a misguided young woman who thinks north is south, and can't
point straight up?"

"You draw a flattering picture, Mr. Cameron."

"It's realistic. Do you still insist upon getting up there, for the
doubtful pleasure of looking down?" Secretly, he hoped so.

"Certainly."

"Then I shall go with you."

"You need not. I can go very well by myself, Mr. Cameron."

Beatrice was something of a hypocrite herself.

"I shall go where duty points the way."

"I hope it points toward home, then."

"It doesn't, though. It takes the trail you take."

"I never yet allowed my wishes to masquerade as Disagreeable Duty, with
two big D's," she told him tartly, and started off.

"Say! If you're going up that hill, this is the trail. You'll bump up
against a straight cliff if you follow that path."

Beatrice turned with seeming reluctance and allowed him to guide her,
just as she had intended he should do.

"Dick tells me you have been away," she began suavely.

"Yes. I've just got back from Fort Belknap," he explained quietly,
though he must have known his absence had been construed differently.
"I've rented pasturage on the reservation for every hoof I own. Great
grass over there--the whole prairie like a hay meadow, almost, and
little streams everywhere."

"You are very fortunate," Beatrice remarked politely.

"Luck ought to come my way o