een one," and Donnegan smiled. "I am the wind and you are the
wild geese, and yet I keep on blowing after you are gone and do not
carry away a feather of you."

"Pretty again."

"And silly. But, really, you are very kind to me, and I shall try not to
take too much advantage of it."

"Will you answer a question?"

"I had rather ask one: but go on."

"What made you so dry a desert, Mr. Donnegan?"

"There is a very leading question again."

"I don't mean it that way. For you had the same sad, hungered look the
first time I saw you--when you came into Milligan's in that beggarly
disguise."

"I shall confess one thing. It was not a disguise. It was the fact of
me; I am a beggarly person."

"Nonsense! I'm not witless, Mr. Donnegan. You talk well. You have an
education."

"In fact I have an educated taste; I disapprove of myself, you see, and
long ago learned not to take myself too seriously."

"Which leads to--"

"The reason why I have wandered so much."

"Like a hunter on a trail. Hunting for what?"

"A chance to sit in a saddle--or a chair--and talk as we are talking."

"Which seems to be idly."

"Oh, you mistake me. Under the surface I am as serious as fire."

"Or ice."

At the random hit he glanced sharply at her, but she was looking a
little past him, thinking.

"I have tried to get at the reason behind all your reasons," she said.
"You came on me in a haphazard fashion, and yet you are not a haphazard
sort."

"Do you see nothing serious about me?"

"I see that you are unhappy," said the girl gently. "And I am sorry."

Once again Donnegan was jarred, and he came within an ace of opening
his mind to her, of pouring out the truth about Lou Macon. Love is a
talking madness in all men and he came within an ace of confessing his
troubles.

"Let's go on," she said, loosening her rein.

"Why not cut back in a semicircle toward The Corner?"

"Toward The Corner? No, no!"

There was a brightening of his eye as he noted her shudder of distaste
or fear, and she strove to cover her traces.

"I'm sick of the place," she said eagerly. "Let's get as far from it as
we may."

"But yonder is a very good trail leading past it."

"Of course we'll ride that way if you wish, but I'd rather go straight
ahead."

If she had insisted stubbornly he would have thought nothing, but the
moment she became politic he was on his guard.

"You dislike something in The Corner," he said, thinking carelessly and
alo