ing-place. He let down
the wire and rode to meet her, troubled as before by that feeling of
disloyalty to the Philbrook interests which caused him to stop more than
once and debate whether he should turn back and wait inside the fence.

The desire to hasten the meeting with Grace was stronger than this
question of his loyalty. He went on, over the hill from which she used
to spy on his passing, into the valley where he had interfered between
the two girls on the day that he found Grace hidden away in this
unexpected place. There he met her coming down the farther slope.

Grace was quite a different figure that day from any she had presented
before, wearing a perky little highland bonnet with an eagle feather in
it, and a skirt and blouse of the same plaid. His eyes announced his
approval as they met, leaning to shake hands from the saddle.

Immediately he brought himself to task for his late admission that she
was inferior in the eyes to Vesta. That misappraisement was due to the
disadvantage under which he had seen Grace heretofore. This morning she
was as dainty as a fresh-blown pink, and as delicately sweet. He swung
from the saddle and stood off admiring her with so much speaking from
his eyes that she grew rosy in their fire.

"Will you get down, Grace? I've never had a chance to see how tall you
are--I couldn't tell that day on the train."

The eagle feather came even with his ear when she stood beside him,
slender and strong, health in her eyes, her womanhood ripening in her
lips. Not as tall as Vesta, not as full of figure, he began in mental
measurement, burning with self-reproof when he caught himself at it. Why
should he always be drawing comparisons between her and Vesta, to her
disadvantage in all things? It was unwarranted, it was absurd!

They sat on the hillside, their horses nipping each other in
introductory preliminaries, then settling down to immediate friendship.
They were far beyond sight of the fence. Lambert hoped, with an uneasy
return of that feeling of disloyalty and guilt, that Vesta would not
come riding up that way and find the open strands of wire.

This thought passed away and troubled him no more as they sat talking of
the strange way of their "meeting on the run," as she said.

"There isn't a horse in a thousand that could have caught up with me
that day."

"Not one in thousands," he amended, with due gratitude to Whetstone.

"I expected you'd be riding him today, Duke."

"H