her to see how she relished the jest. For Mrs. Laithe had
learned their ways in two weeks, and this was one of them--to favor one
another with witty sallies in her presence, and solely in her behalf.
All the men of Bar-7 practiced this amiable strategy. When a group of
them assembled within her hearing the swift exchange of repartee,
accompanied by the inevitable side glance, was a thing to wonder at.

Indeed, the lady had learned their ways. Even before she neared the gate
Alonzo Pierce, son of Beulah, appeared round the corner of the ranch
house to take her pony, sauntering with a flagrant _ennui_, in full
knowledge that Sandy Goodhue had started violently on the same gallant
mission, but from the farthest corral. Shane Riley, chained by his
labors to the doorway of the cookhouse, smirked genially out over a pot
that he polished; and Red Phinney, star rider at Bar-7, seated himself
on the step before the front door, so that he might have to arise with
flourishing apologies--a performance that would move the lady to ask
about his sprained wrist, now in bandage.

This familiar assembling of her court, professedly casual, was swiftly
detected by Mrs. Laithe. But she saw now, being near the gate, a quick
turning toward her of the strange youth. It was a brief, impersonal
survey that seemed not to disengage her from the background of gray road
and yellowish-green willows; but clearly it sufficed. With a curt nod to
Pierce he was mounted; in another breath his amazed and indignant horse,
spurred viciously from its trance, raged with protesting snorts over the
road to the east. As Mrs. Laithe reined up at the gate she beheld,
through a nimbus of dust, the rider's boots groping pathetically for
their stirrups.

She repressed a little gasp of astonishment in which the natural woman
might have betrayed her view of so headlong a retreat, although, had
Beulah Pierce been alone at the gate, she might have descended to speech
with him about this strangely retiring youth. But as 'Lon Pierce waited
for her pony, with a masterly taunt for Sandy Goodhue, who came up
breathless but late, and as Red Phinney had already risen from his
obstructive seat in the doorway, his wrist held cunningly forward to
provoke solicitous inquiry, the lady passed in with only such easy words
as the moment demanded. She was reflecting, with agreeable interest,
that the young man's avoidance of her would presently begin to seem
pointed.

This conjecture