lked back toward San Juan.

A little later she heard the man's voice, calling. Clearly to her,
since there was no one else. Why should he call to her? She gave no
sign of having heard, but walked on a trifle faster. She sensed that
he was galloping down upon her; still in the loose sand the hoof-beats
were muffled. Then when he called a second time she stopped and turned
and waited.

A splendid big fellow he was, she noted as he came on, riding a
splendid big horse. Man and beast seemed to belong to the desert; had
it not been for the glint of the sun she realized now, she probably
would not have distinguished their distant forms from the land across
which they had moved. The horse was a darkish, dull gray; the man,
boots, corduroy breeches, soft shirt, and hat, was garbed in gray or so
covered with the dust of travel as to seem so.

"What in the world are you doing way out here?" he called to her. And
then having come closer he reined in his horse, stared at her a moment
in surprised wonderment, swept off his hat and said, a shade awkwardly:
"I beg pardon. I thought you were some one else."

For her wide hat was again drooping about her face, and he had had just
the form of her and the white skirt and waist to judge by.

"It is all right," she said lightly. "I imagined that you had made a
mistake."

It was something of a victory over herself to have succeeded in
speaking thus carelessly. For there had been the impulse, a temptation
almost, just to stare back at the man as he had stared at her and in
silence. Not only was the type physically magnificent; to her it was,
like everything about her, new. And that which had held her at first
was his eyes. For it is not the part of youth to be stern-eyed; and
while this man could not be more than midway between twenty and thirty,
his eyes had already acquired the trick of being hard, steely,
suggesting relentlessness, stern and quick. Tall, lean-bodied, with
big calloused hands, as brown as an Indian, hair and eyes were
uncompromisingly black. He belonged to the southwestern wastes.

These things she noted, and that his face was drawn and weary, that
about his left hand was tied a handkerchief, hinting at a minor cut,
that his horse looked as travel-worn as himself.

"One doesn't see strangers often around San Juan," he explained. "As
for a girl . . . Well, I never made a mistake like this before. I'll
have to look out." The muscles of the tired f