t me my place, all right, all right." He smiled his grim admiration
of her cleverness. "But it's too late. It's a pity, too, for I think I
could have made good."

It was characteristic of him that he never entertained even a momentary
thought of a possibility of reconciliation. He had told her what he was
going to do and that was settled business. It was going to be a little
rough on him to quit "broke"; it would take all his summer's wages to
recoup Carter for that hay and the loss of the men's time incurred in
the ditch mending. The fall round-up would be over by that time and work
is scarce for unattached cowpunchers in the winter. It meant "choring
for his board" until spring's activities widened the vista and the
prospect was uninviting to one of energetic temperament.

Even more characteristic was his utter lack of resentment of the young
lady's rebuke; he had "presumed too far" and got what was coming to him.
He was conscious that he had deserved it, in more ways than one. But
even as he admitted this to himself there crept again into his eyes a
something not altogether wholesome and reassuring to any woman arousing
it.

Of love so far he had known only two phases, the filial which is
specifically restricted, and the universal which is diametrically
diffused over so great an area that it is dubious whether it really
merits that high classification. For his parents he had entertained an
affection closely approximating idolatry, especially for his mother,
whom he had known best, his father having died in his early childhood;
he also had a certain affection for little children, for flowers, for
the more frail and helpless things of creation in general, that might be
dignified by the name of love but which more probably was merely the
indulgent patronage of all strong natures for things weaker than
themselves. At college he had made no special strong affiliations for
the simple reason that few of his fellow-students were strong enough,
physically, mentally, or morally, to greatly command his respect. And
all unknowing to him he had come away from school with a hunger in his
really affectionate heart that had not been appeased by precarious
contact with the unsatisfying elements among which his lines had been
cast. Not once in all his western career had he met with an affinitive
soul on which he might have leaned and so gained that chastening sense
of tender dependence without which no man ever yet attained happines