ware of something unusual, something disquieting in
the manner of the man's approach. The horse was leaping under the
spurs; the rider sat upright and alert in the saddle; and suddenly, as
she watched him, the man's hand went to his hip, and there was a gleam
of metal in the sun.

She was not afraid. Seth Huntington had assured her there was nothing
to be feared in Paradise Park. But for all that, it was not without
uneasiness that she hastily arranged the meager folds of her divided
skirt, and passed her hands quickly over the still disordered masses
of her hair. And then he was fairly upon her, reining up with a jerk
that brought the sweating pony back upon its haunches.

There was an angry glitter in the man's dark eyes, his face was black
with passion, and the bright object she had seen flashing in his hand
was the twin brother of Huntington's six-shooter. He was roughly, even
meanly, dressed. His coarse blue flannel shirt was unbuttoned at the
throat; his soiled brown corduroy trousers were thrust unevenly into
dusty and wrinkled boot tops; his old, gray hat was slouched over one
side of his forehead, shading his eyes. But the face beneath that
faded and disreputable hat, as Marion saw with a slight thrill of
curiosity, belonged to no ranch hand or cow-puncher. Whoever he might
be, and whatever he might be doing there scowling at her, she felt at
once that he was as foreign as herself to that neighborhood. But there
was no time at that moment to analyze her feeling, to formulate her
thought. And her next impression, following very swiftly, was one of
vague antagonism. She felt that she was going to hate him.

"What new trick is this?" he demanded angrily, when he had looked from
the girl to her pony, and at her again, with unconcealed suspicion.

For a moment she was undecided whether to answer him sharply or to
rebuke his incivility with silence.

"I don't know!" she replied at last, by way of compromise between her
two impulses, with a half-playful emphasis on the "I," accompanied by
a very solemn, shaking of the head and a very innocent widening of the
eyes.

There was a pause while he searched her face with a distrustful
scrutiny.

"You're not just the person I was looking for," he said finally, with
a touch of irony.

"How fortunate!" she replied, in a tone that was like a mocking echo
of his own.

Her eyes met his unflinchingly, a little impudently, telling him
nothing; then they slowly fell, and