igorous discipline of averted
face and frigid tones.

As it was, she thawed toward him as he held himself more aloof, until
she actually came to the point of addressing him directly, with a
flicker of a smile for good measure; and, although he responded with
stiff civility, he felt his blood pulse faster, and suddenly conceived
the idea that women are like the creatures of the wild. If one is very
quiet, and makes no advance whatever, the hunted thing comes closer and
closer, and then a sudden pounce--he caught his breath. After that he
was wary and watchful and full of his purpose.

Within ten minutes Evadna walked into the trap. They had started, and
were fifty yards up the trail, when Phoebe shouted frantically after
them. And because she was yet a timid rider and feared to keep the pace
set by the others, it was Evadna who heard and turned back to see what
was the trouble. Aunt Phoebe was standing beside the road, waving a
flask.

"It's the cream for your coffee," she cried, going to meet Evadna. "You
can slip it into your jacket-pocket, can't you, honey? Huckleberry is so
steady--and you won't do any wild riding like the boys."

"I've got my veil and a box of bait and two handkerchiefs and a piece of
soap," the girl complained, reaching down for the bottle, nevertheless.
"But I can carry it in my hand till I overtake somebody to give it to."

The somebody proved to be Good Indian, who had found it necessary to
stop and inspect carefully the left forefoot of his horse, without
appearing aware of the girl's approach. She ambled up at Huckleberry's
favorite shuffling gait, struck him with her whip--a blow which would
not have perturbed a mosquito--when he showed a disposition to stop
beside Grant, and then, when Huckleberry reluctantly resumed his pacing,
pulled him up, and looked back at the figure stooped over the hoof he
held upon his knee. He was digging into the caked dirt inside the hoof
with his pocketknife, and, though Evadna waited while she might have
spoken a dozen words, he paid not the slightest attention--and that in
spite of the distinct shadow of her head and shoulders which lay at his
feet.

"Oh--Grant," she began perfunctorily, "I'm sorry to trouble you--but do
you happen to have an empty pocket?"

Good Indian gave a final scrape with his knife, and released the foot,
which Keno immediately stamped pettishly into the dust. He closed the
knife, after wiping the blade upon his trousers leg, and