d never be able to go to sleep. They blinked down
through the black-barred, delicate crisscross of pine foliage, and they
looked so big and so close. Then she gazed away to open space, where an
expanse of sky glittered with stars, and the longer she gazed the larger
they grew and the more she saw.

It was her belief that she had come to love all the physical things
from which sensations of beauty and mystery and strength poured into her
responsive mind; but best of all she loved these Western stars, for they
were to have something to do with her life, were somehow to influence
her destiny.

*****

For a few days the prevailing features of camp life for Madeline's
guests were sleep and rest. Dorothy Coombs slept through twenty-four
hours, and then was so difficult to awaken that for a while her friends
were alarmed. Helen almost fell asleep while eating and talking. The
men were more visibly affected by the mountain air than the women.
Castleton, however, would not succumb to the strange drowsiness while he
had a chance to prowl around with a gun.

This languorous spell disappeared presently, and then the days were full
of life and action. Mrs. Beck and Bobby and Boyd, however, did not go in
for anything very strenuous. Edith Wayne, too, preferred to walk through
the groves or sit upon the grassy promontory. It was Helen and Dorothy
who wanted to explore the crags and canyons, and when they could not get
the others to accompany them they went alone, giving the cowboy guides
many a long climb.

Necessarily, of course, Madeline and her guests were now thrown much in
company with the cowboys. And the party grew to be like one big family.
Her friends not only adapted themselves admirably to the situation, but
came to revel in it. As for Madeline, she saw that outside of a certain
proclivity of the cowboys to be gallant and on dress-parade and alive
to possibilities of fun and excitement, they were not greatly different
from what they were at all times. If there were a leveling process here
it was made by her friends coming down to meet the Westerners. Besides,
any class of people would tend to grow natural in such circumstances and
environment.

Madeline found the situation one of keen and double interest for her.
If before she had cared to study her cowboys, particularly Stewart, now,
with the contrasts afforded by her guests, she felt by turns she was
amused and mystified and perplexed and saddened, and th