of a purely business nature, curt and brief, always addressed
to her brother and only containing the conventionally-required
remembrances to herself. And now the over-wide gulf was forever
unbridgable. In her desolation and heartache she cried herself to
sleep.

CHAPTER XV

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Constance Brevoort's two months had lengthened into five and it was now
October. Her experience had been unique and so diverting that the
attractions of the eastern metropolis had paled before the more virile
and exciting possibilities of this life primitive, and it had required
but slight persuasion on the part of the Carters to induce her to
prolong her stay until the time of their own return to New York.

The healthful outdoor life, to which she took with avidity, had worked
wonders for her really splendid and responsive constitution, and her
normal great beauty had been freshened and intensified to a degree that
made her conquest of the unsophisticated cowpunchers a thing of almost
unenjoyable ease. With the single exception of Red, who loyally
worshiped at the shrine of his first-loved divinity, every man for miles
around did open and unblushing homage to the bewitching goddess, who
found in their frank adoration a charm and satisfaction unknown to her
previous inane piracies on the placid shallows of the social millpond.
Out here on the high seas of unshackled independence, where every man
was a viking in his own right and cruised with unbridled license through
the deeps of his own will, each conquest was a victory to be written
large on the tablet of her vanity. In her own land she had found many
men who would languidly live for her favors; out here there was not one
who would not eagerly die for the privilege of carrying out her most
whimsical commands. And with womanly lack of philosophy she very much
preferred those who would die to those who would live.

Under the jealous ministrations of her Centaur swains she had developed
a great skill of horsewoman-ship, and in their company she and Grace
Carter had ridden the range thoroughly, leaving not one point thereof
unexplored. Each man vied with the other in the breaking of a safe mount
for her, and tradition has it that there were more gentle horses on the
range that year than had ever been known before on the whole western
slope. These extended rides were a Godsend for Grace, diverting her mind
from its cankering memories and bringing a new beauty to both face