rs. What's the use?" she
demanded, almost savagely. Then, before he could answer, the girl
closed the door she had opened for him. "We must be moving. The sun
has already set in the valley."

His glances swept the park below. Heavily wooded gulches pushed down
from the roots of the mountains that girt Huerfano to meet the fences
of the ranchers. The cliffs rose sheer and bleak. The panorama was a
wild and primitive one. It suggested to the troubled mind of the young
man an eagle's nest built far up in the crags from which the great bird
could swoop down upon its victims. He carried the figure farther.
Were these hillmen eagles, hawks, and vultures? And was he beside them
only a tomtit? He wished he knew.

"Were you born here?" he asked, his thoughts jumping back to the girl
beside him.

"Yes."

"And you've always lived here?"

"Except for one year when I went away to school."

"Where?"

"To Denver."

The thing he was thinking jumped into words almost unconsciously.

"Do you like it here?"

"Like it?" Her dusky eyes stabbed at him. "What does it matter
whether I like it? I have to live here, don't I?"

The swift parry and thrust of the girl was almost ferocious.

"I oughtn't to have put it that way," he apologized. "What I meant
was, did you like your year outside at school?"

Abruptly she rose. "We'll be going. You ride down. My foot is all
right now."

"I wouldn't think of it," he answered promptly. "You might injure
yourself for life."

"I tell you I'm all right," she said, impatience in her voice.

To prove her claim she limped a few yards slowly. In spite of a
stubborn will the girl's breath came raggedly. Beaudry caught the
bridle of the horse and followed her.

"Don't, please. You might hurt yourself," he urged.

She nodded. "All right. Bring the horse close to that big rock."

From the boulder she mounted without his help. Presently she asked a
careless question.

"Why do you call him Cornell? Is it for the college?"

"Yes. I went to school there a year." He roused himself to answer
with the proper degree of lightness. "At the ball games we barked in
chorus a rhyme: 'Cornell I yell--yell--yell--Cornell.' That's how it
is with this old plug. If I want to get anywhere before the day after
to-morrow, I have to yell--yell--yell."

The young woman showed in a smile a row of white strong teeth. "I see.
His real name is Day-After-To-Morrow, but you call him C