eal more by the look than you had at
first suspected. They were wonderful, beautiful eyes, and the little
company of idlers at the station were promptly bewitched by them.
Moreover there was a fantastic little dimple in her right cheek that
flashed into view at the same time with the gleam of pearly teeth when
she smiled. She certainly was a picture. The station looked its fill and
rejoiced in her young beauty.

She was garbed in a dark green riding habit, the same that she wore when
she rode attended by her groom in Central Park. It made a sensation
among the onlookers, as did the little riding cap of dark green velvet
and the pretty riding gloves. She sat her pony well, daintily, as though
she had alighted briefly, but to their eyes strangely, and not as the
women out there rode. On the whole the station saw little else but the
girl; all the others were mere accessories to the picture.

They noticed indeed that the young man, whose close cropped golden
curls, and dark lashed blue eyes were so like the girl's that he could
be none other than her brother, rode beside the older man who was
presumably the father; and that the dark, handsome stranger rode away
beside the girl. Not a man of them but resented it. Not a woman of them
but regretted it.

Then Shag Bunce, with a parting word to his small but complete outfit
that rode behind, put spurs to his horse, lifted his sombrero in homage
to the lady, and shot to the front of the line, his shaggy mane by which
came his name floating over his shoulders. Out into the sunshine of a
perfect day the riders went, and the group around the platform stood
silently and watched until they were a speck in the distance blurring
with the sunny plain and occasional ash and cottonwood trees.

"I seen the missionary go by early this mornin'," speculated the station
agent meditatively, deliberately, as though he only had a right to break
the silence. "I wonder whar he could 'a' bin goin'. He passed on t'other
side the track er I'd 'a' ast 'im. He 'peared in a turrible hurry.
Anybody sick over towards the canyon way?"

"Buck's papoose heap sick!" muttered an immobile Indian, and shuffled
off the platform with a stolid face. The women heaved a sigh of
disappointment and turned to go. The show was out and they must return
to the monotony of their lives. They wondered what it would be like to
ride off like that into the sunshine with cheeks like roses and eyes
that saw nothing but pleasure