elf-sufficiency, she had, but not
self-righteousness. Then, most striking contra-distinction of all to
the old-land culture, there was unconsciousness of self--face to
sunlight, radiant of the joy of life, not anaemic and putrid of its own
egoism. She didn't talk in phrases thread-bare from use. She had all
the naked unashamed directness of the West that thinks in terms of life
and speaks without gloze. She never side-stepped the facts of life
that she might not wish to know. Yet her intrusion on such facts gave
the impression of the touch that heals.

The Forest Ranger had heard the Valley talk of MacDonald, the Canadian
sheep rancher, belonging to some famous fur-trade clans that had
intermarried with the Indians generations before; and Wayland used to
wonder if it could be that strain of life from the outdoors that never
pretends nor lies that had given her Eastern culture the red-blooded
directness of the West. To be sure, such a character study was not
less interesting because he read it through eyes glossy as an Indian's,
under lashes with the curve of the Celt, with black hair that blew
changing curls to every wind. Indian and Celt--was that it, he
wondered?--reserve and passion, self-control and yet the abandonment of
force that bursts its own barriers?

She had not wormed under the surface for some indirect answer that
would betray what he intended to do. She had asked exactly what she
wanted to know, with a slight accent on the--you.

"Are you going to straddle or fight?"

Wayland flicked pine needles from his mountaineering boots. He
answered his own thoughts more than her question.

"All very well to say--fight; fight for all the fellows in the Land and
Forest Service when they see a steal being sneaked and jobbed! But
suppose you do fight, and get licked, and get yourself chucked out of
the job? Suppose the follow who takes your place sells out to the
enemy--well, then; where are you? Lost everything; gained nothing!"
She laid her panama sunshade on the timbered seat that spanned between
two stumps.

"Men must decide that sort of thing every day I suppose."

"You bet they must," agreed the Ranger with a burst of boyishness
through his old-man air, "and the Lord pity the chap who has wife and
kiddies in the balance--"

"Do you think women tip the scale wrong?"

"Of course not! They'd advise right--right--right;
fight--fight--fight, just as you do; but the point is--can a fellow do
ri