s from a gigantic poppy-boll. And then, as the gorge-wedge
narrowed, there were great, polished boulders, like up-peeping skulls,
and riven ledges against which Indian hunters had made their fires in
the old days. And on the tipping land of the mountainside, and the
little strips where soil lodged between the rocks, the quaking-asp grew
thick and tall.

There in a little nook among the trees, where trampling tourists
had eaten their luncheon upon a flat stone and left the bags and
pickle-bottles behind them, they sat down. At that altitude the
sunshine of an afternoon in late August was welcome. A man whipping
the stream for trout caught his tackle in some low branches not ten
feet from where they sat, and swore as he disentangled it. He passed
on without seeing them.

"That goes to illustrate how near a man may be to something, and not
know it," said the doctor, a smile quickening his grave face for a
moment. "This time yesterday I was kicking over the rubbish where a
gambling-tent had stood in Comanche, in the hope of finding a dime."

He stopped, looked away down the soft-tinted gorge as if wrapped in
reminiscent thought. She caught her breath quickly, turning to him with
a little start and gazing at his set face, upon which a new, strange
somberness had fallen in those unaccounted days.

"Did you find it?" she asked.

"No, I didn't," he answered, coming out of his dream. "At that hour I
knew nothing about having drawn the first number, and I didn't know that
I was the lucky man until past midnight. I had just a running jump at
the chance then, and I took it."

"And you won!" she cried, admiration in her eyes.

"I hope so," said he, gazing earnestly into her face.

Her eyes would not stand; they retreated, and a rush of blood spread
over her cheeks like the reserve of an army covering its withdrawal from
the field.

"I feel like I had just begun to live," he declared.

"I didn't see you arrive this morning," she told him, "for I turned and
went away from the land-office when they opened the window. I couldn't
stand it to see that man Peterson take what belonged to you."

He looked at her curiously.

"But you don't ask me where I was those two days," said he.

"You'll tell me--if you want me to know," she smiled.

"When I returned to the Hotel Metropole, even more ragged and
discreditable-appearing than I was when you saw me this morning," he
resumed, "the proprietor's wife asked me where I'd been. I