king sands? He, too, would enjoy the radiance, and
risk the crater.

She stood, not angry, but a trifle bewildered, a trifle proud in her
attitude of uptilted chin. In all her little autocratic world, her
gracious friendliness had never before met anything so like rebuff.

Then, having resolved, the man felt an almost boyish reaction to
light-hearted gayety. It was much the same gay abandonment that comes
to a man who, having faced ruin until his heart and brain are sick,
suddenly decides to squander in extravagant and riotous pleasure the
few dollars left in his pocket.

"Of course, George should have told me," he declared. "Why, Miss
Filson, I come from the world where things are commonplace, and here
it all seems a sequence of wonders: this glorious country, the miracle
of meeting you again--after--" he paused, then smilingly added--"after
Babylon and Macedonia."

"From the way you greeted me," she naively observed, "one might have
fancied that you'd been running away ever since we parted in Babylon
and Macedon. You must be very tired."

"I _am_ afraid of you," he avowed.

She laughed.

"I know you are a woman-hater. But I was a boy myself until I was
seventeen. I've never quite got used to being a woman, so you needn't
mind."

"Miss Filson," he hazarded gravely, "when I saw you yesterday, I
wanted to be friends with you so much that--that I ran away. Some day,
I'll tell you why."

For a moment, she looked at him with a puzzled interest. The light of
a smile dies slowly from most faces. It went out of his eyes as
suddenly as an electric bulb switched off, leaving the features those
of a much older man. She caught the look, and in her wisdom said
nothing--but wondered what he meant.

Her eyes fell on the empty canvas. "How did you happen to begin art?"
she inquired. "Did you always feel it calling you?"

He shook his head, then the smile came back.

"A freezing cow started me," he announced.

"A what?" Her eyes were once more puzzled.

"You see," he elucidated, "I was a cow-puncher in Montana, without
money. One winter, the snow covered the prairies so long that the
cattle were starving at their grazing places. Usually, the breeze from
the Japanese current blows off the snow from time to time, and we can
graze the steers all winter on the range. This time, the Japanese
current seemed to have been switched off, and they were dying on the
snow-bound pastures."

"Yes," she prompted. "But how did that