d that if Lassiter did not soften to a woman's
grace and beauty and wiles, then it would be because she could not make
him.

"I reckon you'll hear no more such talk from me," Lassiter went on,
presently. "Now, Miss Jane, I rode in to tell you that your herd of
white steers is down on the slope behind them big ridges. An' I seen
somethin' goin' on that'd be mighty interestin' to you, if you could see
it. Have you a field-glass?"

"Yes, I have two glasses. I'll get them and ride out with you. Wait,
Lassiter, please," she said, and hurried within. Sending word to Jerd to
saddle Black Star and fetch him to the court, she then went to her room
and changed to the riding-clothes she always donned when going into
the sage. In this male attire her mirror showed her a jaunty, handsome
rider. If she expected some little need of admiration from Lassiter, she
had no cause for disappointment. The gentle smile that she liked, which
made of him another person, slowly overspread his face.

"If I didn't take you for a boy!" he exclaimed. "It's powerful queer
what difference clothes make. Now I've been some scared of your dignity,
like when the other night you was all in white but in this rig--"

Black Star came pounding into the court, dragging Jerd half off his
feet, and he whistled at Lassiter's black. But at sight of Jane all his
defiant lines seemed to soften, and with tosses of his beautiful head he
whipped his bridle.

"Down, Black Star, down," said Jane.

He dropped his head, and, slowly lengthening, he bent one foreleg, then
the other, and sank to his knees. Jane slipped her left foot in the
stirrup, swung lightly into the saddle, and Black Star rose with a
ringing stamp. It was not easy for Jane to hold him to a canter through
the grove, and like the wind he broke when he saw the sage. Jane let him
have a couple of miles of free running on the open trail, and then she
coaxed him in and waited for her companion. Lassiter was not long in
catching up, and presently they were riding side by side. It reminded
her how she used to ride with Venters. Where was he now? She gazed
far down the slope to the curved purple lines of Deception Pass and
involuntarily shut her eyes with a trembling stir of nameless fear.

"We'll turn off here," Lassiter said, "en' take to the sage a mile or
so. The white herd is behind them big ridges."

"What are you going to show me?" asked Jane. "I'm prepared--don't be
afraid."

He smiled as if he m