sons for knowing."

Poor Machiavelli! He was at her feet figuratively in an instant. "That
Buffo business! It was abominable of me! Don't judge me by a thing like
that. I can do better things. Will you let bygones be bygones, if I
plead guilty to the gentle impeachment and promise to let you criticise
my future efforts?"

She took his extended hand frankly. "Everything begins right here." She
gave thanks for a timely cloud's momentary obscuration of the moon as he
laid his lips on the tiny gauntlet. Then she impulsively urged her horse
into a gallop, and before the moon had emerged from behind the cloud,
they had crossed the ridge and the ranch lights twinkled in view though
still a good five miles away.

Up on the hillside above, behind a bowlder which commanded in easy range
the point where their compact had been sealed, a man lay fumbling a
rifle and fluently cursing the cloud which had so inopportunely spoiled
his aim. His vicious face was distorted with rage and fury, his mouth
foaming with passion.

"Damn you," he raved, shaking his clenched fist at the offending white
billow; "I'd got him if you had waited a second longer or crossed a
second sooner. Everything goes against me, and he's got all the luck.
I'll get him yet." And with hideous blasphemies trickling from his thick
lips, he again shook his fist impotently at the derisively smiling face
of the moon and slunk away to the horse tied in the shadows behind him.

In blissful ignorance of that narrowly averted calamity, the pair on the
other side of the ridge rode silently along in the restored moonlight.
The woman was very happy and loth to break the spell; the man whirling
in the maelstrom of a jumbled introspection. The victim of strongly
opposed currents, he drifted aimlessly in the sea of troubled thought,
seeing no shore and seeking none. Content to leave much to Chance and
more to Opportunity, he had hitherto let his destiny shape itself,
satisfied with merely aiding fate to the best of his physical ability as
the occasion offered; but now he was conscious of a growing incitement
to dictate his own future. The temptation to try and dominate things
was very strong. He had compelled the smaller ones to come his way when
he had so chosen, why not the greater ones. He glanced covertly at the
woman riding by his side; in the soft moonlight she was very fair.

It was she who first broke the silence, her words unconsciously
pandering to his suddenly-form