noring the compliment. "Why, I've got awfully fine gowns up there that
I only wear when I go to Marysville oncet in a while."

"Does he take you there?" asked Brice.

"No!" she answered quietly. "Not"--a little defiantly--"that he's
afeard, for they can't prove anything against him; no man kin swear to
him, and thar ain't an officer that keers to go for him. But he's that
shy for ME he don't keer to have me mixed with him."

"But nobody recognizes you?"

"Sometimes--but I don't keer for that." She cocked her hat a little
audaciously, but Brice noticed that her arms afterwards dropped at her
side with the same weary gesture he had observed before. "Whenever I go
into shops it's always 'Yes, miss,' and 'No, miss,' and 'Certainly,
Miss Dimwood.' Oh, they're mighty respectful. I reckon they allow that
Snapshot Harry's rifle carries far."

Presently she faced him again, for their conversation had been carried
on in profile. There was a critical, searching look in her brown eyes.

"Here I'm talkin' to you as if you were one"--Mr. Brice was positive
she was going to say "one of the gang," but she hesitated and concluded,
"one of my relations--like cousin Hiram."

"I wish you would think of me as being as true a friend," said the young
man earnestly.

She did not reply immediately, but seemed to be examining the distance.
They were not far from the canyon now, and the river bank. A fringe of
buckeyes hid the base of the mountain, which had begun to tower up above
them to the invisible stage road overhead. "I am going to be a real
guide to you now," she said suddenly. "When we reach that buckeye corner
and are out of sight, we will turn into it instead of going through the
canyon. You shall go up the mountain to the stage road, from THIS side."

"But it is impossible!" he exclaimed, in astonishment. "Your uncle said
so."

"Coming DOWN, but not going up," she returned, with a laugh. "I found
it, and no one knows it but myself."

He glanced up at the towering cliff; its nearly perpendicular flanks
were seamed with fissures, some clefts deeply set with stunted growths
of thorn and "scrub," but still sheer and forbidding, and then glanced
back at her incredulously. "I will show you," she said, answering his
look with a smile of triumph. "I haven't tramped over this whole valley
for nothing! But wait until we reach the river bank. They must think
that we've gone through the canyon."

"They?

"Yes--any one who is watch