ively. "My father died a little over a year
ago."

"I know, Jack wrote me."

"Why didn't you get my letter sooner?"

"I was on the trail."

"On the trail! You are always on the trail. Oh, the wild life you lead!
I saw notices of you once or twice--always in some trouble." She looked
at him smilingly but there was sadness in her smile.

"It's no fault of mine," he exclaimed. "I can't stand by and see some
poor Indian or Chinaman bullied--and besides the papers always
exaggerate everything I do. You mustn't condemn me till you hear my side
of these scrapes."

"I don't condemn you at all but it makes me sad," she slowly replied.
"You are wasting your life out there in the wild country--oh, isn't it
strange that we should sit here? My mind is so busy with the wonder of
it I can't talk straight. I had given up ever seeing you again----"

"You're not married?" he asked with startling bluntness.

She colored hotly. "No."

"Are you engaged?"

"No," she replied faintly.

"Then you're mine!" he said with a clutch upon her wrist, a masterful
intensity of passion in his eyes.

"Don't--please don't!" she said, "they will see you."

"I don't care if they do!" he exultingly said; then his face darkened.
"But perhaps you are ashamed of me?"

"Oh, no, no--only----"

"I couldn't blame you if you were," he said bitterly. "I'm only a poor
devil of a mountaineer, not fit to sit here beside you."

"Tell me about yourself," she hastened to say. "What have you been doing
all these years?" She was determined to turn him from his savage
arraignment of himself.

"It won't amount to much in your eyes. It isn't worth as much to me as I
thought it was going to be. When I found King had your promise--I hit
the trail and I didn't care where it led, so it didn't double on itself.
I didn't want to see or hear anything of you again. What became of
King? Why did you turn him loose?"

Her eyelids fell to shut out his gaze. "Well--after your visit I
couldn't find courage to fulfill my promise--and so I asked him to
release me--and he did--he was very kind."

"He couldn't do anything else."

"Go on with your story," she said hurriedly.

As they sat thus in the corner of the little sitting room, the pupils
and guests of the institution came and went from the cloak rooms, eyeing
the intent couple with smiling and curious glances. Who could that dark,
handsome young man be who held Miss Yardwell with his glittering eyes?
The girls f