of chamois skin from her bosom, and
swiftly removed some of the dust and moisture from her flushed face.
Then her hair, always somewhat unruly, required a touch or two. That
done, she smoothed down the gray coat over her slender hips, adjusted
the gray silk tie at her throat, and waited.

He came, in his habitual cloud of dust; pulled up his pony within ten
feet of the obstruction; saw the saddle hanging at a dangerous angle
over Tuesday's side; and accepted the obvious conclusion that Miss
Marion Gaylord, looking very warm and embarrassed, but certainly very
pretty in her confusion, had narrowly escaped a fall.

"I think I'd better help you with that, Miss Gaylord," he said.

"Thank you!" she said, with an appealing reluctance. "I can do it--I
often saddle my own horse, and--"

"I should judge that you had saddled him this time," he interrupted
her to say, without the slightest trace of irony in his tone.

She bit her lip, as she silently made way for him, and stood at
Tuesday's head, stroking his neck with one small, gloved hand while
Haig adjusted the blanket, fitted the saddle firmly, and tightened the
double cinch. He was dressed in the nondescript costume he had worn at
their first meeting. That same hat, uniquely insolent, soiled and limp
and disreputable, was stuck on the back of his head, revealing a full,
clean-moulded brow, over which, at one side, his thick black hair fell
carelessly. His eyes were calm gray rather than stormy black to-day,
but a gray that was singularly dark and deep and luminous. His manner
was in the strangest contrast with the two different moods in which
she had already seen him--as if the fires were out, as if all emotion
and interest had been dissolved in listlessness. And she divined at
once that her chance of success was small.

"That will hold, I think," he said gravely; and started toward his
horse.

"It wasn't Tuesday's fault," she said eagerly.

Haig paused, on one foot as it were, and looked over his shoulder.

"It was fortunate for you that he's been well gentled," he said. "You
should look to your cinches rather often when you ride these hills."

("You should keep your feet dry, and come in when it rains," he might
as well have said, she thought angrily.)

"Yes, it was careless of me," she answered, trying to say it brightly,
but really wanting to shriek.

"It happens to everybody once in a while," he said.

On that, he stepped to his pony, put a foot in the s