was stirring in her heart, just as it had
been when her lips had turned to his at the sunrise. As for him, love
ran through his veins like old wine. But he allowed his feelings no
expression. For though she had come to him of her own accord for that
one blessed minute at dawn, he could not be sure what had moved her so
deeply. She was treading a world primeval, the wonder of it still in
her soft eyes. Would she waken to love or to disillusion?

He took care to see that she did not tire. Presently he stopped and held
out his hand to say good-bye.

"Will you come back this way?" she asked.

"Yes. I ought to get here soon after dark. Will you meet me?"

She gave him a quick, shy little nod, turned without shaking hands, and
struck out for the cabin. All through the day happiness flooded her
heart. While she waited on Holt or helped Mrs. Olson cook or watched
Swiftwater while he put up the tent in the lee of the cabin, little
snatches of song bubbled from her lips. Sometimes they were bits of old
Irish ballads that popped into her mind. Once, while she was preparing
some coffee for her patient, it was a stanza from Burns:--

"Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run."

She caught old Gideon looking at her with a queer little smile on his
weather-tanned face and she felt the color beat into her cheeks.

"I haven't bought a wedding present for twenty years," he told her
presently, apropos of nothing that had been said. "I won't know what's
the proper thing to get, Miss Sheba."

"If you talk nonsense like that I'll go out and talk to Mr. Swiftwater
Pete," she threatened, blushing.

Old Gid folded his hands meekly. "I'll be good--honest I will. Let's
see. I got to make safe and sane conversation, have I? Hm! Wonder when
that lazy, long-legged, good-for-nothing horsethief and holdup that
calls himself Gordon Elliot will get back to camp."

Sheba looked into his twinkling eyes suspiciously as she handed him his
coffee. For a moment she bit her lip to keep back a smile, then said
with mock severity,--

"Now, I _am_ going to leave you to Mrs. Olson."

When sunset came it found Sheba on the trail. Swiftwater Pete had
offered to go with her, but she had been relieved of his well-meant
kindness by the demand of Holt.

"No, you don't, Pete. You ain't a-goin' off gallivantin' with no young
lady. You're a-go