ole and recognized it for the same that she had played with
as they talked by the wayside. Her eyes charged him with having picked
it up afterwards and his eyes replied with the truth, but they said no
words about it. They did not need words.

It was not until they reached the top of a sloping hill, and suddenly
came upon the view of the valley with its winding track gleaming in the
late afternoon sun, the little wooden station and few cabins dotted here
and there, that she suddenly realized that their journey together was at
an end, for this was the place from which she had started two days
before.

He had no need to tell her. She saw the smug red gleam of their own
private car standing on the track not far away. She was brought face to
face with the fact that her friends were down there in the valley and
all the stiff conventionalities of her life stood ready to build a wall
between this man and herself. They would sweep him out of her life as if
she had never met him, never been found and saved by him, and carry her
away to their tiresome round of parties and pleasure excursions again.

She lifted her eyes with a frightened, almost pleading glance as if for
a moment she would ask him to turn with her back to the desert again.
She found his eyes upon her in a long deep gaze of farewell, as one
looks upon the face of a beloved soon to be parted from earth. She could
not bear the blinding of the love she saw there, and her own heart
leaped up anew to meet it in answering love.

But it was only this one flash of a glance they had, when they were
aware of voices and the sound of horses' hoofs, and almost instantly
around the clump of sage-brush below the trail there swept into sight
three horsemen, Shag Bunce, an Indian, and Hazel's brother. They were
talking excitedly, and evidently starting out on a new search.

The missionary with quick presence of mind started the horses on,
shouting out a greeting, and was answered with instant cheers from the
approaching party, followed by shots from Shag Bunce in signal that the
lost was found; shots which immediately seemed to echo from the valley
and swell into shouting and rejoicing.

Then all was confusion at once.

The handsome, reckless brother with gold hair like Hazel's embraced her,
talking loud and eagerly; showing how he had done this and that to find
her; blaming the country, the horses, the guides, the roads; and paying
little heed to the missionary who instantl