u did."

"Well, now," he drawled. "An' so you took that much interest in what I
was thinkin'! I reckon people who write must know a lot."

Her face expressed absolute surprise. "Why, who told you that I
wrote?" she questioned.

"Nobody told me, ma'am. I just heard it. I heard a man tell another
man that you had threatened to make him a character in a book you was
writin'."

Her face was suddenly convulsed. "I imagine I know whom you mean," she
said. "A young cowboy from the Two Diamond used to annoy me quite a
little, until one day I discouraged him."

His smile grew broad at this answer. But he grew serious instantly.

"I don't think there is much to write about in this country, ma'am," he
said.

"You don't? Why, I believe you are trying to discourage me!"

"I reckon you won't listen to me, ma'am, if you want to write. I've
heard that anyone who writes is a special kind of a person an' they
just can't help writin'--any more'n I can help comin' over here to see
your brother. You see, they like it a heap."

They both laughed, she because of the clever way in which he had turned
the conversation to his advantage; he through sheer delight. But she
did purpose to allow him to dwell on the point he had raised, so she
adroitly took up the thread where he had broken off to apply his
similitude.

"Some of that is true," she returned, giving him a look on her own
account; "especially about a writer loving his work. But I don't think
one needs to be a 'special' kind of person. One must be merely a keen
observer."

He shook his head doubtfully. "I see everything that goes on around
me," he returned. "Most of the time I can tell pretty near what sort a
man is by lookin' at his face and watching the way he moves. But I
reckon I'd never make a writer. Times when I look at this country--at
a nice sunset, for instance, or think what a big place this country
is--I feel like sayin' somethin' about it; somethin' inside of me seems
kind of breathless-like--kind of scarin' me. But I couldn't write
about it."

She had felt it, too, and more than once had sat down with her pencil
to transcribe her thoughts. She thought that it was not exactly fear,
but an overpowering realization of her own atomity; a sort of cringing
of the soul away from the utter vastness of the world; a growing
consciousness of the unlimited bigness of things; an insight of the
infinite power of God--the yearning of the soul for underst