e the man ahead,
and yet he was quite as bronzed and travel-worn.

A turn in the trail brought them both close under her feet, and again
the man in the rear glanced up at the figure poised on the bowlder
above him, and his eyes glowed once more with pleasure. There was in
his look an expression of acknowledged kinship, as of one refined soul
to another, a kind of subtle flattery which pleased while it puzzled
the girl. Men with eyes of that appeal were not common in her world.

The bitter look vanished out of her face. She gazed after the trailer
with the unabashed interest of a child, wondering who he might be. In
that instant her soul, impressionable and eager, received and
retained, like a sensitive plate, every line of his figure, every
minute modelling of his face--even his fashion of saddle and the
leather of his gun-case remained with her as food for reflection, and
as she loitered down the trail a wish to know more about him rose in
her heart. There was a kind of smiling ecstasy on his face before he
saw her--as if he, too, were transported by the scene, and this
expression came at last to be the chief revelation of his character.

[Illustration: "THERE WAS IN HIS LOOK AN EXPRESSION OF
ACKNOWLEDGED KINSHIP"]

The red went out of the sky. The golden eagle of cloud flew home over
the illimitable seas of saffron, the purple shadows rose in the
valleys, the lights of the town began to sparkle. Engine-bells clanged
to and fro, and the strains of a saloon band rose to vex the girl's
poetic soul with repugnant remembrances of the dance-hall. "I suppose
he is only camping through," she thought, a little wistfully,
referring back to the stranger. "I wish I knew who he is."

As she came down to the level of the stream its friendly roar cut off
the ribald music and the clamor of the engines precisely as the bank
shut away the visible town, leaving the little row of pretty cottages
in the ward of the mountains and the martial, ranked, and towering
firs.

At the foot of the trail a gray-haired woman met her. It was her
mother, disturbed, indignant. "Viola Lambert, what do you mean by
staying up there after dark? I'm all a-tremble over you."

"It isn't dark, mother," answered the girl; "and if it were, it isn't
the first time I've been out alone."

Mrs. Lambert's voice softened. "Child, I can hardly see your face!
You must not do such things. I don't mind your being out on horseback,
but you must not go up the