e path, kissed her,
told her not to ask questions and helped her into the saddle. He swung
up to Little Saxon's back and together they rode out into the forest
through the brightening morning.

"Wayne," she said when he had done nothing but look at her and drive
the colour higher and higher into her cheeks. "Where are we going?"

"Can't you guess?" he teased her.

They were riding toward the north, toward the cliffs standing up about
Echo Creek Valley, toward the cave.

"Wayne," she said again, a little sadly, "I was going to tell you the
other day, but you were in such a hurry-- You are not going to the
cave?"

"Why not?" he asked lightly.

"I can't go there any more," she answered quickly. "I had come to love
it so, it was so entirely ours, dear. And now, I saw it the last time
I rode that way, there's a sign on the cliffs, 'No Hunting Allowed.' I
asked papa. He has sold all that side of the valley, the cliffs and
the flats beyond to some man in the city."

Shandon laughed.

"What's the odds?" as lightly as before. "Come right down to it,
Wanda, the cave has served its purpose, hasn't it? And, if you'd been
shut up in it like a prison, I wonder if you'd have any sentiment for
it left? Let's make the horses run a bit. I feel like a gallop, don't
you?"

She bent forward in the saddle hurriedly, hiding her face from him.
How should a man care for the little things which mean so much to a
girl?

But still they rode toward the cliffs. The sign was there, a black and
white monstrosity which hurt her but which seemed merely to interest
Shandon. He insisted on riding closer. And when, too proud to show
him all that she felt, she came with him to the big cedar, he
dismounted and put out his hands to her.

"Let's go up," he said lightly. "Just for fun."

She refused, and he insisted. And at last they climbed up.

Wayne was upon the ledge of rock before her, his eyes filled with a
love that shone sparklingly, laughingly into her troubled ones. She
began to wonder--

She turned swiftly toward the entrance of the cave. There was a door
now made of great rough hewn slabs of wood. Wayne slipped his arm
about her and drew her close to it.

"Will you open it?" he whispered.

"Wayne!" wonderingly, seeking to understand.

He took her hand in his, laid it for a moment upon his lips, then put
her fingers against the great door.

"Open it, dear," he told her.

Slowly the heavy, wide portal swun