o such a career and had escaped without a scar. And her
self-confidence was commensurably great. It was her laughing boast that
no man had ever given her a sensation other than those of charity and
weariness, and she was irritatingly frank in her expressions to that
effect, even to her victims. Her visit to the Carter ranch was merely a
caprice, occasioned by Grace's enthusiastic laudations of her pet
western plainsmen and her mischievous intimation that beyond the Rockies
was a world impregnable to even the prowess of this female Alexander.
Grace was not a little alarmed at the prompt acceptance of her
inadvertent challenge by the finished coquette, who really had no design
whatever on her proteges but only utilized it as an excuse to get away
for a time from an environment productive of ennui. She had heartily
tired of the silly game and really welcomed the distraction of a new and
unique experience.

Nevertheless, she had gaily laid a wager with Grace that she would, in
less than the allotted two-months of her stay, bedeck her belt with the
scalp of every cowpuncher within a radius of ten miles from the C Bar.
And when, as the day of their departure for the West approached, Miss
Carter realized that Mrs. Brevoort was in earnest, she wished that she
had been less urgent in her conventional invitation: it is ever a
dubious venture, this turning of one's pet preserve over to the
questionable mercies of a skillful and calloused hunter.

Well, there was no danger now, she was thinking with a sad sinking of
heart, as she looked wistfully at a cluster of long-dried heart's-ease
in her escritoire. It was over and done with, and that chapter of her
life was closed forever. For Abbie had, in a fit of self-reproach, told
her of her taunt on that eventful night and she had instantly divined
his thoughts and deductions. Her first impulse had been to write him and
indignantly deny--what? He had not given voice to any such belief in her
duplicity, and how was she to assume that he entertained such a thought
without giving color and grounds for his suspicion? And then, again, he
had not left any address and it would be impossible to reach him by
mail. She knew him well enough to know that he would never again look
upon her willingly in his foolish and unjustified resentment, and the
probabilities of a consistent explanation were all against her. He had
never written her one word during her eastern sojourn; his letters had
been all