ged boulders strewing the lower levels. There was really no
great danger, she told herself over and over; King's cheery calls
reassured her; no danger so long as they went forward on foot. But now
and then when a horse's foot slipped and a wild cascade of loose soil
and rocks went hurtling downward, she grew rigid with apprehension.

But there was only an hour of this. Thereafter they rode down a long
slope and into a long, narrow, twisting ravine, rocky cliffs on one hand
and a noisy stream on the other, a fair trail underfoot. Nearly always
now King rode ahead, finding the way for her; and Gloria, her spirits
drooping again with the advancing afternoon, vaguely oppressed by the
solemn stillness about her, was glad that she too could be silent. When
he did call to her she needed only nod or smile; he turned to point out
some rare view that appealed to him, a vista worth her seeing, a cascade
or a fall of cliff, or a ferny nook, or perhaps a late ceanothus-
blossom. He pointed out a scampering Douglas squirrel and had her
hearken to a quail.

"We're already in the finest timber belt in the world," he told her,
full of enthusiastic loyalty to his beloved mountains.

Thus, he leading the way, she following with head down and shoulders
drooping, they came about four o'clock to a small meadow, cliff-ringed,
studded with big yellow pines and here and there graced with an incense
cedar. Stopping in the open, sitting sideways in the saddle, he waited
for her.

"And what do you think of this, Miss Gloria?" he called gaily as her
horse thrust his black nose through the alders down by the creek.

Gloria drew rein and looked at him with large eyes across the twenty
paces separating them.

"I can't go any further," she said bleakly. "I'm tired out!"

He was quick to see a gathering of tears, and swung down from his horse
and went to her with long strides, his own eyes filled with concern.

"Poor little kidlet," he said humbly. "I've let you do yourself up...."

And it was his duty, his privilege, and no one's else in the world, to
shelter her, to stand between her and all hardship. He put out his arms
to take her into them quite as he could have picked up a little maid of
six, something stirring in the depths of him which in man is twin to the
maternal instinct in woman. But Gloria said hurriedly: "Please, Mark, I
am so tired ..." and drew back, and he let his hands fall to his side.
For a second time her act hurt him; her