of the West, in the
open-air, healthy life of the ranches, where the conditions of earning
a livelihood were of the easiest, refinement among the younger women was
easily to be found--not the refinement of education, nor culture, but
the natural, intuitive refinement of the woman, not as yet defiled and
crushed out by the sordid, strenuous life-struggle of over-populated
districts. It was the original, intended and natural delicacy of an
elemental existence, close to nature, close to life, close to the great,
kindly earth.

As Hilma laid the table-spread, her arms opened to their widest reach,
the white cloth setting a little glisten of reflected light underneath
the chin, Annixter stirred in his place uneasily.

"Oh, it's you, is it, Miss Hilma?" he remarked, for the sake of saying
something. "Good-morning. How do you do?"

"Good-morning, sir," she answered, looking up, resting for a moment on
her outspread palms. "I hope you are better."

Her voice was low in pitch and of a velvety huskiness, seeming to come
more from her chest than from her throat.

"Well, I'm some better," growled Annixter. Then suddenly he demanded,
"Where's that dog?"

A decrepit Irish setter sometimes made his appearance in and about the
ranch house, sleeping under the bed and eating when anyone about the
place thought to give him a plate of bread.

Annixter had no particular interest in the dog. For weeks at a time he
ignored its existence. It was not his dog. But to-day it seemed as if he
could not let the subject rest. For no reason that he could explain even
to himself, he recurred to it continually. He questioned Hilma minutely
all about the dog. Who owned him? How old did she think he was? Did she
imagine the dog was sick? Where had he got to? Maybe he had crawled
off to die somewhere. He recurred to the subject all through the meal;
apparently, he could talk of nothing else, and as she finally went away
after clearing off the table, he went onto the porch and called after
her:

"Say, Miss Hilma."

"Yes, sir."

"If that dog turns up again you let me know."

"Very well, sir."

Annixter returned to the dining-room and sat down in the chair he had
just vacated. "To hell with the dog!" he muttered, enraged, he could not
tell why.

When at length he allowed his attention to wander from Hilma Tree, he
found that he had been staring fixedly at a thermometer upon the wall
opposite, and this made him think that it had long been hi