as searching his face, as if suddenly in doubt of
him.

"Will you let me tell you--everything?"

"Shoot ahead."

"Some parts will be hard to believe."

"Lady, they won't be nothing as hard to believe as what I've seen you
do with my own eyes."

Then she began to tell her story, and she found a vast comfort in
seeing the ugly, stern face of Sinclair lighted by the burning end of
his cigarette. He never looked at her, but always fixed his stare on
the sea of blackness which was the lower valley.

"All the trouble began with a theory. My father felt that the thing for
a girl was to be educated in the East and marry in the West. He was
full of maxims, you see. 'They turn out knowledge in cities; they turn
out men in mountains,' was one of his maxims. He thought and argued and
lived along those lines. So as soon as I was half grown--oh, I was a
wild tomboy!"

"Eh?" cut in Sinclair.

"I could really do the things then that you'd like to have a woman do,"
she said. "I could ride anything, swim like a fish in snow water,
climb, run, and do anything a boy could do. I suppose that's the sort
of a woman you admire?"

"Me!" exclaimed Riley with violence. "It ain't so, Jig. I been revising
my ideas on women lately. Besides, I never give 'em much thought
before."

He said all this without glancing at her, so that she was able to
indulge in a smile before she went on.

"Just at that point, when I was about to become a true daughter of the
West, Dad snapped me off to school in the East, and then for years and
years there was no West at all for me except a little trip here and
there in vacation time. The rest of it was just study and play, all in
the East. I still liked the West--in theory, you know."

"H'm," muttered Riley.

"And then, I think it was a year ago, I had a letter from Dad with
important news in it. He had just come back from a hunting trip with a
young fellow who he thought represented everything fine in the West. He
was big, good-looking, steady, had a large estate. Dad set his mind on
having me marry him, and he told me so in the letter. Of course I was
upset at the idea of marrying a man I did not know, but Dad always had
a very controlling way with him. I had lost any habit of thinking for
myself in important matters.

"Besides, there was a consolation. Dad sent the picture of his man
along with his letter. The picture was in profile, and it showed me a
fine-looking fellow, with a glorious carriage