or
such luxury or risk as the one denned; but the thing happened. John Gray
fell in love, and fell far.

Arizona is said, by its present inhabitants, to have a climate which
makes the faces of women wonderfully fair, given a face whose features
are not distorted to start with. This assertion may be attributed rather
to territorial pride than to conviction; but it doesn't matter. There
was assuredly one pretty girl in Cougarville, and Gray had begun to feel
a more than passing interest in her. He had even gone so far in his
meditations as to conceive the idea of taking her East with him when he
went back (he had laid up a little money), and though he had not yet
suggested this to the young lady, he felt reasonably confident. She had
been with him much and seemed very fond of him. Once he had kissed her
at the door. Certainly he was fond of her.

The little town upon the railroad was not new, and Miss Fleming belonged
to one of the old families of the place--that is, her father had come
there at least twenty-five years ago. He had mined and dealt in timber
and taken tie contracts, and was now considered as fairly ranking among
the twenty-five or thirty "warm" men of the place. There were castes in
Cougarville, and the society made up of these families was exclusive.
Their parties in town were as select as their picnics in the foothills,
and the foothill picnics were the occasions where Cougarville society
really came out. It was a foothill picnic which brought an end to all
relations between John Gray and Miss Molly Fleming. It came about in
this way.

There had been a party in Cougarville, and Gray, finally abandoning
himself to all the risk of falling in love and marrying this flower of
the frontier, had committed himself deeply. He had declared himself. The
girl was reserved, but beaming. He had to leave his apparently more than
half-acquiescent inamorata to whom he was an escort. At 11 P.M. he left
her temporarily in charge of one Muggles, the curled darling and easily
most imposing clerk among all those employed in the big "emporium" of
the frontier town. He felt safe. Such a character as Molly Fleming could
never be attracted by such a person as that scented floor-walker, even
if he did chance to have a small interest in the concern and reasonably
good prospects. He left them with equanimity; he saw them together an
hour later with just a shade of apprehension. They seemed to understand
each other too well, and t