ght to bring a load of lumber and some
carpenters--and a chaperon," he chided himself in burlesque, his bold
eyes closely on the girl's face to gloat on the color that flew to her
cheeks at his suggestion.

She hastened to disclaim lightly the feeling he had unmasked in her. "It
is a pity, but it can't be helped now. I suppose I am cross and don't
seem very grateful. I'm tired out and nervous, but I am sure that I'll
enjoy sleeping out. If I don't I shall not be so ungenerous as to blame
you."

He soon had a cup of steaming coffee ready for her, and the heat of it
made a new woman of her. She sat in the warm fire glow, and began
to feel stealing over her a delightful reaction of languor. She told
herself severely it was ridiculous to have been so foolishly prim about
the inevitable.

"Since you know my name, isn't it fair that I should know yours?" she
smilingly asked, more amiably than she had yet spoken to him.

"Well, since I have found the lamb that was lost, y'u may call me a
shepherd of the desert."

"Then, Mr. Shepherd, I'm very glad to meet you. I don't remember when
I ever was more glad to meet a stranger." And she added with a little
laugh: "It's a pity I'm too sleepy to do my duty by you in a social
way."

"We'll let that wait till to-morrow. Y'u'll entertain me plenty then.
I'll make your bunk up right away."

She was presently lying with her feet to the fire, snugly rolled in his
saddle blankets. But though her eyes were heavy, her brain was still
too active to permit her to sleep immediately. The excitement of her
adventure was too near, the emotions of the day too poignantly vivid, to
lose their hold on her at once. For the first time in her life she
lay lapped in the illimitable velvet night, countless unwinking stars
lighting the blue-black dream in which she floated. The enchantment of
the night's loveliness swept through her sensitive pulses and thrilled
her with the mystery of the great life of which she was an atom. Awe
held her a willing captive.

She thought of many things, of her past life and its incongruity with
the present, of the man who lay wounded at the Lazy D, of this other
wide-shouldered vagabond who was just now in the shadows beyond the
firelight, pacing up and down with long, light even strides as he looked
to his horse and fed the fire. She watched him make an end of the things
he found to do and then take his place opposite her. Who and what was
he, this fascinating scam