would do. She wanted
only to watch him from some covert. She would not go near him, not let
him see her or guess of her presence.

Thus she assuaged her hurt vanity--thus she stifled her miserable
doubts.

Long before the sun had begun to slant westward toward the
mid-afternoon Jean Isbel had set as a meeting time Ellen directed her
steps through the forest to the Rim. She felt ashamed of her
eagerness. She had a guilty conscience that no strange thrills could
silence. It would be fun to see him, to watch him, to let him wait for
her, to fool him.

Like an Indian, she chose the soft pine-needle mats to tread upon, and
her light-moccasined feet left no trace. Like an Indian also she made
a wide detour, and reached the Rim a quarter of a mile west of the spot
where she had talked with Jean Isbel; and here, turning east, she took
care to step on the bare stones. This was an adventure, seemingly the
first she had ever had in her life. Assuredly she had never before
come directly to the Rim without halting to look, to wonder, to
worship. This time she scarcely glanced into the blue abyss. All
absorbed was she in hiding her tracks. Not one chance in a thousand
would she risk. The Jorth pride burned even while the feminine side of
her dominated her actions. She had some difficult rocky points to
cross, then windfalls to round, and at length reached the covert she
desired. A rugged yellow point of the Rim stood somewhat higher than
the spot Ellen wanted to watch. A dense thicket of jack pines grew to
the very edge. It afforded an ambush that even the Indian eyes Jean
Isbel was credited with could never penetrate. Moreover, if by
accident she made a noise and excited suspicion, she could retreat
unobserved and hide in the huge rocks below the Rim, where a ferret
could not locate her.

With her plan decided upon, Ellen had nothing to do but wait, so she
repaired to the other side of the pine thicket and to the edge of the
Rim where she could watch and listen. She knew that long before she
saw Isbel she would hear his horse. It was altogether unlikely that he
would come on foot.

"Shore, Ellen Jorth, y'u're a queer girl," she mused. "I reckon I
wasn't well acquainted with y'u."

Beneath her yawned a wonderful deep canyon, rugged and rocky with but
few pines on the north slope, thick with dark green timber on the south
slope. Yellow and gray crags, like turreted castles, stood up out of
the sloping fores