XXVII.--THE HILLS OF REST 262

XXVIII.--THE WHITE TIME 273

XXIX.--THE AWAKENING 279

XXX.--THE HARDEST THING 290

XXXI.--THE MISSION OF EWING 304

XXXII.--THE TURNING OF COONEY 313

EWING'S LADY

CHAPTER I

EWING'S KID

Two weeks of instructive contact with the Bar-7 school of gallantry had
prepared Mrs. Laithe to be amazed at her first encounter with Ewing's
kid. Riding out from the ranch one afternoon and turning, for coolness,
up the wooded mesa that rises from the creek flat, she overwhelmed him
at a bend in the trail. Stricken motionless, he glared at the lady with
eyes in which she was compelled to believe that she read more horror
than admiration. There was a moment of this; then her pony neighed a
greeting to the statue--of dusty bronze--as if to say that things were
not so bad as they seemed, and the gazing youth broke the spell his
vision had laid upon him. He bowed his head doggedly and vanished beyond
some low-growing cedars that lined the way.

As he fled the lady laughed softly, yet was silent, with face austerely
set as she passed the point of his evanishment. His behavior recalled
that of a deer she had terrorized one day in this same green isle of the
woods; and she had laughed the same furtive laugh, as if in confidence
to herself, when the creature tossed its head in challenge, pawed the
earth with a dainty bravado, and then fled in such an ecstasy of panic
that she could hear it crashing through the underbrush long after it had
vanished. But this human woods-creature had gone silently; and no great
way, she suspected--far enough only to screen himself while his eyes
still held her through some opening in the green curtain. Wherefore let
us comprehend the mien of austerity as she passed.

Elusiveness in the male, be it bluntly said, was confounding to the
experience of Mrs. Laithe since she had ventured into the San Juan
Mountains under the nominal care of an inattentive brother, and her
belief was still firm that the men about her suffered little from
shyness. This latest specimen would be a single variation from type and
of slight value in determining the ways of his kind.

As her pony picked its way up the trail she mused over the not
unpleasant picture of the youth at bay. It was a thing to be caught at
the moment, for she would