nds dripped to the ground.
He got up from examining the lame foot, and then threw off the saddle.
The black horse snorted and lunged for the watering-pool. Stewart let
him drink a little, then with iron arms dragged him away. In this action
the man's lithe, powerful form impressed Madeline with a wonderful sense
of muscular force. His brawny wrist was bare; his big, strong hand,
first clutching the horse's mane, then patting his neck, had a bruised
knuckle, and one finger was bound up. That hand expressed as much
gentleness and thoughtfulness for the horse as it had strength to drag
him back from too much drinking at a dangerous moment.

Stewart was a combination of fire, strength, and action. These
attributes seemed to cling about him. There was something vital and
compelling in his presence. Worn and spent and drawn as he was from
the long ride, he thrilled Madeline with his potential youth and unused
vitality and promise of things to be, red-blooded deeds, both of flesh
and spirit. In him she saw the strength of his forefathers unimpaired.
The life in him was marvelously significant. The dust, the dirt, the
sweat, the soiled clothes, the bruised and bandaged hand, the brawn and
bone--these had not been despised by the knights of ancient days, nor by
modern women whose eyes shed soft light upon coarse and bloody toilers.

Madeline Hammond compared the man of the East with the man of the West;
and that comparison was the last parting regret for her old standards.

XVII. The Lost Mine of the Padres

In the cool, starry evenings the campers sat around a blazing fire and
told and listened to stories thrillingly fitted to the dark crags and
the wild solitude.

Monty Price had come to shine brilliantly as a storyteller. He was
an atrocious liar, but this fact would not have been evident to his
enthralled listeners if his cowboy comrades, in base jealousy, had not
betrayed him. The truth about his remarkable fabrications, however,
had not become known to Castleton, solely because of the Englishman's
obtuseness. And there was another thing much stranger than this and
quite as amusing. Dorothy Coombs knew Monty was a liar; but she was
so fascinated by the glittering, basilisk eyes he riveted upon her, so
taken in by his horrible tales of blood, that despite her knowledge she
could not help believing them.

Manifestly Monty was very proud of his suddenly acquired gift. Formerly
he had hardly been known to open his l