passing
fancy, a curious, inexplicable infatuation; but, he assured himself
stoutly, not at all the foundation upon which to build for permanency.
Yet as he rode towards the mountains with his eyes fixed upon the low
pass to which Teeters had directed him, he experienced the first real
thrill of carefree happiness that had come to him since his arrival.

The trail was a long and a hard one. His horse lost a shoe and limped
badly, so, as the day waned, he walked frequently to spare the animal.
He was tired, but too eager to be conscious of it. He wondered what she
would be doing when he found her, and whether he could surprise
something like the old-time welcome from her. How her eyes used to
sparkle when he rode up to her! He smiled to himself as he recalled her
smile--frank, beaming, her face radiant with undisguised pleasure.

Kate was sitting on a rock on the backbone of a ridge when he drew in
sight of her--a dark picturesque silhouette against the sky. The sheep
fed below, and her horse, with a bedroll across its back, nibbled not
far away.

Hugh stopped and looked at the lonely figure sitting motionless in the
opaline-tinted light of the sunset, her chin sunk in her palm, her
shoulders drooping. The tears rose to the man's eyes unexpectedly. It
was not right, such solitude for a woman, he told himself vehemently.

It was singular, too, he reflected, how the mere sight of her
revitalized him. Life took on a sudden interest, a zest that it never
had elsewhere. He supposed it was because she was herself so vital. A
feeling of exultation now swept over him--he forgot his fatigue, that he
was hungry, and was conscious only of the fact that he was going to be
near her, to talk to her uninterruptedly--for hours, maybe. After that
he would go back content, ask Beth to marry him, and recover from this
fever, this unreasoning, uncontrollable longing to see Kate again, which
made him weak to imbecility.

Thinking her own thoughts, Kate stared at the ground, or at the sheep
feeding quietly below her. Her rifle leaned against the rock upon which
she was sitting. Occasionally she searched the juniper-covered sides of
an adjacent mountain where an enemy could find convenient hiding, but
mostly she sat looking at the ground at her feet.

She had taken over the valuable buck herd in the face of Bowers's
protest, and was the first to graze on the top of the mountain, though
the other bands were now also close to the summit. I