re was nobody up the canon, and nobody was likely to come from below
for an hour yet. The big boulder was not to thrust itself into the road
any more; another minute, and all that protruding side of it would be
blown off and there would be room for two teams to pass each other.
Hark! Was not that a horse's hoofs down below? He was already in the
act of "touching her off," holding the lighted match in the hollow of
his two hands. As he turned his head to listen, the fuse ignited with a
sharp _spit!_ scorching and blackening the palms of his hands, and
causing him to jump as violently as he used to do before his nerves were
trained to the business. Somewhat disgusted with his want of nerve, he
picked up his tools in a particularly leisurely manner, and deposited
them at a safe distance from the coming crash. Then, to make up for this
bit of bravado, he ran swiftly down the road,--"walluped" he said to
himself, thinking of Loretty's father,--and when he espied the horse, he
shouted and waved his arms in warning.

The horse stopped, and Wakefield slackened his pace. The moment he had
done so he recognized the rider. He was not conscious of any surprise at
seeing Dorothy Ray riding, all by herself, up the canon. He did not
pause to question as to how she got there, to wonder what she would
think of him, turned day-laborer. He felt nothing but an absolute
content and satisfaction in having her there before him; it seemed so
natural and so right that he did not see how it could have been
otherwise! He strode down the road to where she stood, and as she
dropped the bridle and held out both hands to him, he flung his old hat
away and clasped them in his powder-blackened palms.

"O Harry!" she cried with a joyful ring in her voice; "I never was so
glad to see anybody in my life!"

He did not say one word, but as he stood there, bareheaded, there was a
look in his face that gave her pause. Had she been too forward? Was he
so changed? She drew her hands away, and taking up the bridle, looked
uncertainly from side to side.

"Aren't we friends any more, Harry? Aren't you glad to see me?" she
asked. Her voice was unsteady like her look. He had never seen her like
this.

"Glad to see you, Dorothy?" he cried. "You seem like an angel straight
from Heaven, only a hundred thousand million times better!"

A sudden explosion boomed out, putting a period to this emphatic
declaration. Wakefield seized the rein of the startled horse, that