ver what he had
seen and heard at Tralee. "That old geezer will get an awful jolt
one day," he said to himself. "If that girl should wake! Her eyes--if
somebody comes along and draws the curtains! She hasn't the least idea
of where she is or what it all means. All she knows is that she's a
prisoner in some strange, savage country and doesn't know its language
or anybody at all--as though she'd lost her memory. Any fellow, young,
handsome and with enough dash and colour to make him romantic could do
it.... Poor little robin in the snow!" he added, and looked back towards
Tralee.

As he did so, the man from Slow Down Ranch cantering towards Tralee
caught his eye. "Louise-Orlando," he said musingly; then, with a sudden
flick of the reins on his horse's back, he added abruptly, almost
sternly, "By the great horn spoons, no!"

Thus when his prophecy took concrete form, he revolted from it. A grave
look came into his face.

CHAPTER IV. TWO SIDES TO A BARGAIN

As the Young Doctor had said, Orlando Guise did not look like a real,
simon-pure "cowpuncher." He had the appearance of being dressed for the
part, like an actor who has never mounted a cayuse, in a Wild West play.
Yet on this particular day,--when the whole prairie country was alive
with light, thrilling with elixir from the bottle of old Eden's vintage,
and as comfortable as a garden where upon a red wall the peach-vines
cling--he seemed far more than usual the close-fitting, soil-touched
son of the prairie. His wide felt hat, turned up on one side like a
trooper's, was well back on his head; his pinkish brown face was freely
taking the sun, and his clear, light-blue eyes gazed ahead unblinking
in the strong light. His forehead was unwrinkled--a rare thing in that
prairie country where the dry air corrugates the skin; his light-brown
hair curled loosely on the brow, graduating back to closer, crisper
curls which in their thickness made a kind of furry cap. It was like the
coat of a French poodle, so glossy and so companionable was it to the
head. A bright handkerchief of scarlet was tied loosely around
his throat, which was even a little more bare than was the average
ranchman's; and his thick, much-pocketed flannel shirt, worn in place
of a waistcoat and coat, was of a shade of red which contrasted and
yet harmonized with the scarlet of the neckerchief. He did not wear the
sheepskin leggings so common among the ranchmen of the West, but a pair
of yellowish