ed it and then laughed at it.

"It's the house of Grierson that should rejoice," he said longingly.

"Wait until I bring you out above Salome Park," said the girl. "I, too,
have some land up here that's worth while. From my land you can look
straight across the country for miles, back again into your land."

Sometimes, as they journeyed, they passed log cabins backed up against
the long hills, or squatting close to the shining river. Sometimes, as
they journeyed, the red bluffs beetled up above them, tall and frowning.
Sometimes the trees, trailing long green veils, all but met across the
Di below them. Once they passed a saw-mill, set and buzzing; once they
had to wait in the woods while a string of cattle stampeded by; once
they saw a man in a skiff far down the Di. He raised his hand and waved
to them for loneliness' sake. He looked sick with loneliness.

"You know your Missouri by heart," Steering commented admiringly, as she
led him through bridle-paths and by short cuts with a fine woodsmanship.

"Well, I ought to. The times that I have been over it, with Piney, a
ragged Robin-goodfellow at my heels! This is the apple-jack country that
we are in now. Did you know that? Apple-jack stands for our big red
apples and for zinc. There's some of both down here, see!" She stopped
him on a high spur in the ridge road and waved her riding whip toward
the flats below, whose miles upon miles of apple trees made him wonder.
"But wait for Salome Park," she insisted, and led him on.

Riding along beside her, listening to her, forgetful of his
complications, his hills billowing toward him, Steering grew intensely
happy. Just to look at her was enough to make a man happy. Her black,
semi-fitting riding-habit outlined her graces of form enchantingly, the
admirable litheness of her broad deep chest, her firmly-knit back. In
her vigour of well-shaped bone and sinew and muscle she constantly
emphasised the unpoetic nuisance of superfluous flesh. Beneath her
little black hat her burnished hair lay coiled in soft smooth masses low
on her neck. The wonderful vitality that beat through her veins brought
the red colour to her cheeks in delicate waves. In her sunny amber eyes
the high lights danced far back, dazzlingly.

"Now," she cried at last, "one more climb, and here we are at the
summit! Fine, isn't it? That's Salome Park, all of it, as far as you can
see, until you see the Tigmores curving around way off yonder to the
west agai