of easy self-reliance. Some of the
men of her class had it--Ned Kilmeny, for instance. But Ned was an
officer in a fighting regiment which had seen much service. Where had
this tanned fisherman won the manner that inheres only in a leader of
men?

"And how long does it take to belong to your West?" asked the young
woman, with the inflection of derision.

But her mockery was a fraud. In both voice and face was a vivid
eagerness not to be missed.

"Time hasn't a thing to do with it. Men live all their lives here and
are never Westerners. Others are of us in a day. I think you would
qualify early."

She knew that she ought to snub his excursion into the personal, but she
was by nature unconventional.

"How do you know?" she demanded quickly.

"That's just a guess of mine," he smiled.

A musical voice called from within the house. "Have you seen my
_Graphic_, Moya?"

A young woman stood in the doorway, a golden-white beauty with soft
smiling eyes that showed a little surprise at sight of the fisherman. A
faint murmur of apology for the interruption escaped her lips.

Kilmeny could not keep his eyes from her. What a superb young creature
she was, what perfection in the animal grace of the long lines of the
soft rounded body! Her movements had a light buoyancy that was charming.
And where under heaven could a man hope to see anything lovelier than
this pale face with its crown of burnished hair so lustrous and
abundant?

Miss Dwight turned to her friend. "I haven't seen the _Graphic_, Joyce,
dear."

"Isn't it in the billiard room? Thought I saw it there. I'll look,"
Verinder volunteered.

"Good of you," Miss Joyce nodded, her eyes on the stranger who had
turned to leave.

Kilmeny was going because he knew that he might easily outwear his
welcome. He had punished Verinder, and that was enough. The miner had
met too many like him not to know that the man belonged to the family of
common or garden snob. No doubt he rolled in wealth made by his father.
The fellow had studied carefully the shibboleths of the society with
which he wished to be intimate and was probably letter-perfect. None the
less, he was a bounder, a rank outsider tolerated only for his money. He
might do for the husband of some penniless society girl, but he would
never in the world be accepted by her as a friend or an equal. The
thought of him stirred the gorge of the fisherman. Very likely the man
might capture for a wife the slim dark girl