that makes Cupid blind. I had
delved deep as I might in law, and history and literature, seeking to
solve, as I might--what?

Ah, witless! it was to solve this very riddle that rode by my side now,
to answer the question of the Sphinx. What had come of all my studies?
Not so much as I was learning now, here in the open, with this sweet
savage woman whose leggins tinkled as she rode, whose tunic swelled
softly, whose jaw was clean and brown. How weak the precepts of the
social covenant seemed. How feeble and far away the old world we too had
known. And how infinitely sweet, how compellingly necessary now seemed
to me this new, sweet world that swept around us now.

We rode on, side by side, knee to knee. Her garments rustled and
tinkled.

Her voice awoke me from my brooding. "I wish, Mr. Cowles," said she,
"that if you are strong enough and can do so without discomfort, you
would ride with me each day when I ride."

"Why?" I asked. That was the wish in my own mind; but I knew her reason
was not the same as mine.

"Because," she said. She looked at me, but would not answer farther.

"You ought to tell me," I said quietly.

"Because it is prescribed for you."

"Not by my doctor." I shook my head. "Why, then?"

"Stupid--oh, very stupid officer and gentleman!" she aid, smiling
slowly. "Lieutenant Belknap has his duties to look after; and as for Mr.
Orme, I am not sure he is either officer or gentleman."

She spoke quietly but positively. I looked on straight up the valley and
pondered. Then I put out a hand and touched the fringe of her sleeve.

"I am going to try to be a gentleman," said I. "But I wish some fate
would tell me why it is a gentleman can be made from nothing but a man."

CHAPTER XXII

MANDY McGOVERN ON MARRIAGE

Our slow travel finally brought us near to the historic forks of the
Platte where that shallow stream stretches out two arms, one running to
the mountains far to the south, the other still reaching westward for a
time. Between these two ran the Oregon Trail, pointing the way to the
Pacific, and on this trail, somewhere to the west, lay Laramie. Before
us now lay two alternatives. We could go up the beaten road to Laramie,
or we could cross here and take an old trail on the north side of the
river for a time. Auberry thought this latter would give better feed and
water, and perhaps be safer as to Indians, so we held a little council
over it.

The Platte even here was a wide, t