ne swung a boxcar to the side. The
single street was filled with people--women and men from the wagons,
and cowboys who dashed past on their horses or clumped along the wooden
sidewalk with a musical jangle of spurs.

The dance-hall was a blaze of light toward which the people flocked
like moths to a candle flame. As they pushed the horses past, the girl
glanced in. Framed in the doorway stood a man whose eyes met hers
squarely--eyes that, in the lamplight seemed to smile cynically as they
strayed past her and rested for a moment upon her companion, even as
the thin lips were drawn downward at their corners in a sardonic grin.

Unconsciously she brought her quirt down sharply, and her horse, glad
of the chance to stretch his legs after several days in the stall,
bounded forward and taking the bit in his teeth shot past the little
cluster of stores and saloons, past the straggling row of houses and
headed out on the trail that wound in and out among the cottonwood
clumps of the valley. At first, the girl tried vainly to check the
pace, but as the animal settled to a steady run a spirit of wild
exhilaration took possession of her--the feel of the horse bounding
beneath her, the muffled thud of his hoofs in the soft sand of the
trail, the alternating patches of moonlight and shadow, and the keen
tang of the night air--all seemed calling her, urging her on.

At the point where the trail rose abruptly in its ascent to the bench,
the horse slackened his pace and she brought him to a stand, and for
the first time since she left the town, realized she was not alone.
The realization gave her a momentary start, as Purdy reined in close
beside her; but a glance into the man's face reassured her.

"Oh, isn't it just grand! I feel as if I could ride on, and on, and
on."

The man nodded and pointed upward where the surface of the bench cut
the sky-line sharply.

"Yes, mom," he answered respectfully. "If yeh'd admire to, we c'n
foller the trail to the top an' ride a ways along the rim of the bench.
If you like scenes, that ort to be worth while lookin' at. The dance
won't git a-goin' good fer an hour yet 'til the folks gits het up to
it."

For a moment Alice hesitated. The romance of the night was upon her.
Every nerve tingled, with the feel of the wild. Her glance wandered
from the rim of the bench to the cowboy, a picturesque figure as he sat
easily in his saddle, a figure toned by the soft touch of the moonlight
t