unconsciously, with unintentional egotism, the Schoolmarm had a way
of standing off and viewing herself, as it were, through the rosy glow of
romance. Yet she was not a complex character--this Schoolmarm. She had no
soaring ambitions, though her ideals for herself and for others were of
the best. To do her duty, to help those about her, to win and retain the
liking of her half-savage little pupils, were her chief desires.

She had her share of the vanity of her sex, and of its natural liking for
admiration and attention, yet in the freedom of her unique environment she
never overstepped the bounds of the proprieties as she knew them, or
violated in the slightest degree the conventionalities to which she had
been accustomed in her rather narrow home life. It was this reserve which
inspired awe in the men with whom she came in contact, used as they were
to the greater camaraderie of Western women.

In her unsophistication, her provincial innocence, Dora Marshall was
exactly the sort to misunderstand and to be misunderstood, a combination
sometimes quite as dangerous in its results, and as provocative of
trouble, as the intrigues of a designing woman.

"I reckon you think I'm kind of a mounted bum, a grub-liner, or something
like that," said Smith after a time.

"To be frank, I _have_ wondered who you are."

"Have you? Have you, honest?" asked Smith delightedly.

"Well--you're different, you know. I can't explain just how, but you are
not like the others who come and go at the ranch."

"No," Smith replied with some irony; "I'm not like that there Tubbs." He
added laconically, "I'm no angel, me--Smith."

The Schoolmarm laughed. Smith's denial was so obviously superfluous.

"There was a time when I'd do 'most any old thing," he went on, unmindful
of her amusement. "It was only a few years ago that there was no law north
of Cheyenne, and a feller got what he wanted with his gun. I got my share.
I come from a country where they sleep between sheets, but I got a lickin'
that wasn't comin' to me, and I quit the flat when I was thirteen. I've
been out amongst 'em since."

The desire to reform somebody, which lies dormant in every woman's bosom,
began to stir in the Schoolmarm's.

"But you--you wouldn't 'do any old thing' now, would you?"

Smith hesitated, and a variety of expressions succeeded one another upon
his face. It was an awkward moment, for, under the uplifting influence of
the feeling which possessed him, h