LITMIR.BIZ

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"What are you thinking?"

      "Asking myself questions."

      "So am I. If you will ask them out aloud perhaps we can get better acquainted. I'd like to—and I believe you would. Or am I taking in too much territory, Jim Chaffee?"

      "You're not a pilgrim," said he.

      "No, I'm not," she answered. "I was born and raised in the West. I went East to school. I came back and both of my folks died. I have been doing many things in many places since then. There. I am answering questions you didn't ask. Now it's my turn. What's ahead of you?"

      "Sixty dollars a month and found, I reckon."

      "You're not fair to yourself, my dear man. Nobody looking at you in the rodeo yesterday would ever think you were easily whipped. You're not either." That last sentence rang quite strongly. He turned to her a little surprised.

      "Now what—"

      "That's fair, isn't it?" she broke in, her cheeks pink. "We're asking questions."

      A tension inside him snapped and left him smiling at the horizons. All at once he was a slim and lazy and slightly reckless figure. Fine sprays of humor wrinkled his bronzed temples. "Maybe my luck is changin', but I don't think so."

      "I have often found that a person makes his own luck," said she, and gravely folded her hands on the horn. "Whose cattle off to the right?"

      He studied a scattered band in the distance. "Stirrup S. Well, a man can make his luck up to a certain point, but he can't change the universe to do it. Now look at me and then look—" Right there he stopped. This was going pretty far. But the surprising and insouciant Gay Thatcher blandly finished the thought for him.

      "—Then look at me. All right Jim Chaffee, just you look at me. I don't think you have seen me yet. Oh, I know—but I mean you haven't really seen me. How far is it to the rim?"

      "Just a little piece now. I can judge men, but not women. I reckon I'll have to pass that bet."

      "They told me you were a man of courage," said the girl in a mildly plaintive voice. And as an apparent afterthought she added: "They also told me you knew something about women."

      He said nothing to that, and she tucked one sure observation in the back of her head. "He is a gentleman." They worked up along a slight incline. Fence posts spread before them. The canyon's black and foreboding depths yawned abysmally beyond the wire. They got down. Chaffee helped her through the barbed strands and took her arm as they advanced to the precipice and looked below. He didn't want her to think he was assuming an undue freedom, so he explained.

      "Some people get dizzy looking down there. It ain't only the distance, but when the light hits that moving water it does funny things to the eyes."

      She said nothing for several minutes, but he felt her body alternately lighten and relax and sway slightly as she studied the grim, sheer walls and the remote river heaving itself turbulently onward. The immensity of the picture, the solemn and inspiring force of it seemed to grip her as it always gripped him. Steadied by his arm, she leaned a little forward, her clear face utterly absorbed, her eyes somehow puzzled. It reminded Chaffee at the moment of a child watching the heart of a fire and unconsciously captured by the eternal lure of the mystery of life. The knowledge that she, too, was affected by the elemental rawness of the canyon immeasurably warmed his heart.

      She raised her face to him. "When the ground is secure under our feet we are big, important. It takes this to make us humble, Jim Chaffee."

      "I don't know of any better medicine to reduce the size of a fellow's pride," said he.

      "You haven't any false pride," she told him.

      "I've lived too long in the open."

      "Why," she asked, "do they call it Roaring Horse canyon?"

      He delayed the answer for some moments. "A horse is a tough animal. It never makes much fuss. But there is one time in its life when it makes a sound that will turn a man ice cold all over. And that is when it knowingly goes to death. I have heard animals squeal; I've heard them bellow and groan and scream. But there isn't anything so almighty heartbreaking and pitiful as to hear that half roar and half scream of a horse going down. It's pretty near human. Thats why they named it Roaring Horse. Many a brute has gone over this rim. And nothing lives that goes over."

      "I have heard them," she said quietly. "Where are the fords of the river?"

      "Lee's Ferry is up five miles nearer the bench. It's a stiff climb down, but that's about the only accessible spot near here, and the only quiet water. Linderman's Ranch, fifteen miles below is the other. The canyon drops toward the desert level there."

      "Has anybody ever navigated the gorge?"

      "A fellow did it in 1892. Three different parties have tried since. All drowned. One chance in four. It can be done, but a man has to be pretty desperate to try. He's got to hit the rough water just right. The river never lets up from Lee's to Linderman's. I think we'd better start back. Getting late."

      They got to their horses and turned silently south. The girl, wondered at the prolonged quietness swung to find him reading the ground; and it surprised her to see the quick change coming over his lean cheeks. His eyes were slightly narrowed and his lips were pressed tightly together. In the grip of such an expression the man's face was neither handsome nor pleasant. It was again the face of a fighter, the same face she had seen at the rodeo. Wondering, she scanned the foreground and saw nothing, save here and there a scuffed trail made either by cattle or horses. Once when the western rim began to blaze with the purple and gold of a setting sun, he slackened the pace and went to one side of his pony. And thereafter, until the outline of the Woolfridge ranch houses grew plain in the distance, he looked straight ahead of him, looked with some kind of a problem. Seeing the houses, he broke away from his preoccupation.

      "There's the end of your trip. I'll leave you here."

      "It has been a pleasant trip," said she, drawing rein.

      Humor flickered a moment in his deep eyes. And that humor covered the profound earnestness of his words. "My luck's gone out. You will be going back to your own country in a few days. I'll not be seeing you again."

      "Why not?"

      The sun was down and the shadows swirling across the desert. In the dimming light they faced each other, and Jim Chaffee saw in her the vision of the woman he had always carried in his heart. She was fair and sturdy, feminine and desirable; a wisp of brown hair strayed across her cheeks and she lifted a hand to brush it back—a swift and graceful movement that brought with it a faint fragrance of perfume. Her lips were pursed, and her eyes met his glance squarely as if wishing to speak.

      "I'll be riding close to my outfit the next week," said he. "Snow's falling up in the peaks. It will be here soon. And—other things are going to happen."

      "Is that the only reason, Jim?"

      She used his first name. So naturally did it fall into her soft and slightly wistful question that he hardly noticed it. He drew a deep breath. "No. No—it ain't. A man can make his own luck—but he can't change the universe to do it. Ma'am—"

      "My name," said she, just above a whisper, "is Gay."

      "I have said it many times to myself. Gay. No other name would fit you. And I will be sayin' it many more times—after you're gone. A man's got to play the cards as they fall. He can't stack the deck."

      She made a small gesture with her hands. "You don't know me, Jim. You are setting me too high. Oh, see me as I am!" And after another interval she added: "Perhaps I know more about affairs in the country than you think. If I asked you to be—a little careful, would you remember?"

      He shook his head. "Now you're setting me too high."

      "No, I'm not!" said she, the energy of her answer raising her in the saddle. "You are honest, you are—a gentleman. What more should you be?" She took up the reins and moved away. Ten yards off she turned, and he saw the blurred white oval of her face. "I am asking you to be careful. I know many things I wish

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