allop she acknowledged herself a
clog. Concealing her disgust of herself under a bright smile, she called
out: "Why don't you people gallop ahead, and let me jog along at my own
gait?"

"Oh no," replied Ben, "we don't want to do that. Are you tired?" He
became anxious at once.

"No, no! Please go! Mrs. Haney wants to race--I can see that; and I'd
really like to see her ride--she sits her horse so beautifully."

"Very well," Ben acquiesced, "we'll take a run ahead, and come back to
you."

Thereupon they set off, Bertha leading in a rushing gallop up a fine
road which wound along a ravine, towards the top of a broad mesa. Alice,
with slack rein in her small hand, rode slowly on in the vivid sunlight,
a chill shadow rolling in upon her soul. As young as her lover in years,
she nevertheless seemed at the moment twice his age. Everything
interested him. Nothing interested her. He was never tired mentally or
physically, and his smooth, unwrinkled face still reflected the morning
sunlight of the world. "He is still the boy, while I am old and wrinkled
and nerveless," she bitterly confessed.

When they returned to her at the top of the mesa, flushed and laughing,
her pain had deepened into despair. Up to that moment she had checked
disease with a belief that some day she was to recover her health, that
some day her wrinkles would be smoothed out and her cheeks resume their
youthful charm; but now she knew herself as she was--a broken thing. The
divine glow and grace of youth would never again come to her, while this
vigorous and joyous girl would grow in womanly charm from month to
month. "She is going to be very beautiful," she admitted; and even in
the midst of her own discouragement she could not but admire Bertha's
skill with the horse. She rode in the manner of a cowboy, holding her
hands high and guiding her horse by pulling the reins across his neck.
Ben was receiving lessons from her--absorbed and jocular.

At the top of the mesa they all halted to look away over the
landscape--a gray-green, tumbled land, out of which fantastic red rocks
rose, and over which, to the west, the snowy peaks loomed. Ben drew a
deep breath of joy. It seemed that the world had never been so
beautiful. "Isn't it magnificent!" he cried. "I like this country!
Alice, let's make our home here."

She smiled a little constrainedly. "Just as you say, dear."

"Why shouldn't we, when the climate is doing you so much good?"

The horse that Be