nly tired, and Carol said he must go to
bed at once. They all rose and walked to the door, and then, very
surprisingly, Connie thought she would like to sit a while on the quiet
porch, from which every other one had gone to the carnival, and collect
her thoughts. Carol frowned, and David smiled, but what could they do?
They had said they were tired and now they must go to bed perforce.
Prince looked after her, and looked at the door that had closed behind
David and Carol, and rubbed his fingers thoughtfully under his
collar,--and followed Connie back to the porch.

"Will it bother you if I sit here a while? I won't talk if you want to
think."

"It won't bother me a bit," she assured him warmly. "It is nice of you
to keep me company. And I would rather talk than think."

So he put her chair at the proper angle where the street lamp revealed
her clear white features, and he sat as close beside her as he dared.
She did not know it, but his elbow was really on the arm of her chair
instead of his own. He almost held his breath for fear a slight move
would betray him. Wasn't she a wonderful girl? She turned sidewise in
the chair, her head resting against the high back, and smiled at him.

"Now talk," she said. "Let us get acquainted. See if you can make me
love the mountain ranges better than Chicago."

He told her of the clean sweep of the wind around his little cottage
among the pines on the side of the mountain, of the wild animals that
sometimes prowled his way, of the shouting of the boys on the range in
the dark night, the swaying of distant lanterns, the tinkle of sheep
bells. He told her of his father, of the things that he himself had
once planned to be and do. He told her of his friends: of Lily, his
pal, so-called because he used a safety razor every morning of his
life; of Whisker, the finest dog in Colorado; of Ruby, the ruddy brown
horse that would follow him miles through the mountains and always find
the master at the end of the trail. And he told her it was a lonely
life. And it was. Prince Ingram had lived here fourteen years, with
no more consciousness of being alone than the eagle perched solitary on
the mountain crags, but quite suddenly he discovered that it was
lonely, and somehow the discovery took the wonder from that free glad
life, and made him long for the city's bright lights, where there were
others,--not just cowboys, but regular men and women.

"Yes," assented Connie rather