noise, like water running out of a bottle, and the animal
walked forward. A slight variation of the sound, and it stopped. He
laughed at her mystified expression, and bidding her ride on, ran at his
horse and with a magnificent leap sprang clear on to its back. In a
second he was rushing like the wind across the moor. He jerked up the
animal until it stood almost perpendicular on its hind-legs, and came back
to her.

"It's jest thinking in horse-sense," he said. "I ran a ranch for seven
years, and you can't do that without thinking like a horse."

They sat on the top of Hay Tor, and looked across the tumbling country to
where the sea lay like a strip of cloth twenty miles away. Right across
the moors came the steady westerly wind, sighing and soughing, touching
their cheeks with its fresh fingers.

"Is Colorado better than this?" she queried.

"You shouldn't ask me that."

"Why not?"

"It's your home, and one loves one's home."

"One loves one's home." The phrase amused her. He must have read that
somewhere. She laughed, and instinctively he knew the cause of it. He bit
his lips in anger as he realized that she merely mocked his attempts at
better speech.

But he forgot that later as they rode home through the gloaming. Once only
it occurred to him that to mock her horsemanship would be scarcely worse
than jibing at his mode of expression--a thing which would have seemed
sacrilege in his eyes. So all the culture--if culture meant refinement of
thoughts and actions--was not confined to the blue-blooded aristocrats!

Sweet dreams, Colorado Jim! Dreams of a pair of blue eyes in the face of a
Greek goddess, with limbs that Praxiteles never surpassed. And these to be
won by a man from the wilderness! He awoke to despise the day with its
uncertainties. She might be cold again this morning--cold as she had been
the day before yesterday.

But it proved to be otherwise. She greeted him with a soft "Good-morning,"
and walked with him into the garden, among the roses and sweet-smelling
things of summer. And then--oh, wonderful, exquisite marvel!--plucked a
sprig of mignonette, smelled it, and placed it in his buttonhole.

After breakfast he bought the property; and he bought it in a manner dear
to the heart of the vendor. He wrote a cheque, then and there, for
L25,000, and took a receipt, intimating that the "lawyer-man" would see to
all the details later.

Something wonderful and mysterious had happened to Angela. J