experience; but this one,
strange, overwhelming, dazed him with its violence.

Love frequently comes like this to people in the wilds, to those who have
few interests and much time to think. The emotional side of their natures
has been held in check until a trifle is sometimes sufficient to loose a
torrent which nothing can then divert or check.

She asked him to loop her latigo, which was trailing, and his hand shook
as he fumbled with the leather strap.

"Gawd!" he swore in bewilderment as he returned to his own horse, wiping
his forehead with the back of his gauntlet, "what feelin' is this workin'
on me? Am I gettin' locoed, me--Smith?"

"I'm glad I've found a friend like you," said the Schoolmarm impulsively.
"One needs friends in a country like this."

"A friend!" It sounded like a jest to Smith. "A friend!" he repeated with
an odd laugh. Then he raised his hand, as one takes an oath, and whatever
of whiteness was left in Smith's soul illumined his face as he added:
"Yes, to a killin' finish."

If Smith had met Dora among many, the result might have been the same in
the end, but here, in the isolation, she seemed from the first the centre
of everything, the alpha and omega of the universe, and his passion for
her was as great as though it were the growth of many months instead of
less than twenty-four hours. The depth, the breadth, of it could not
quickly be determined, nor the lengths to which it would take him. It was
something new to be reckoned with. To what extent it would control him,
neither Smith nor any one else could have told. He knew only that it now
seemed the most real, the most sincere, the best thing which had ever come
into his life.

Dora Marshall knew nothing of men like Smith, or of natures like those of
the men of the mountains and ranges, who paid her homage. Her knowledge of
life and people was drawn from the limited experiences of a small, Middle
West town, together with a year at a Middle West co-ed college, and as a
result of the latter the Schoolmarm cherished a fine belief in her worldly
wisdom, whereas, in a measure, her lack of it was one of her charms.
Susie, in her way, was wiser.

The Schoolmarm's attitude toward her daily life was the natural outcome of
a romantic nature and an imaginative mind. She saw herself as the heroine
of an absorbing story, the living of which story she enjoyed to the
utmost, while every incident and every person contributed to its interest.
Quite