LITMIR.BIZ

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want to look at the country all by yourself?" he inquired.

      She pretended a start, looking down at him in apparent surprise.

      "Why," she prevaricated, "I thought there was no one within miles of me!"

      She saw his eyes flash in the sunlight. "Of course," he drawled, "there's such an awful darkness that no one could see a pony comin' across the flat. You think you'll be able to find your way home?"

      She flushed guiltily and did not reply. She heard him clambering up over the loose stones, and presently he stood near her. She made a pretense of writing.

      "Did you stop at the cabin?" she asked without looking up.

      He regarded her with amused eyes, standing loosely, his arms folded, the fingers of his right hand pulling at his chin. "Did I stop?" he repeated. "I couldn't rightly say. Seems to me as though I did. You see, I didn't intend to, but I was ridin' down that way an' I thought I'd stop in an' have a talk with Ben."

      "Oh!" Sometimes even a monosyllable is pregnant with mockery.

      "But he wasn't there. Nobody was there. I wasn't reckonin' on everybody runnin' off."

      She turned and looked straight at him. "Why," she said, "I shouldn't think our running away would surprise you. You see, you set us an example in running away the other day."

      He knew instantly that she referred to his precipitate retreat on the night she had hinted that she intended putting him into her story. She shot another glance at him and saw his face redden with embarrassment, but he showed no intention of running now.

      "I've been thinkin' of what you said," he returned. "You couldn't put me into no book. You don't know anything about me. You don't know what I think. Then how could you do it?"

      "Of course," she returned, turning squarely around to him and speaking seriously, "the story will be fiction, and the plot will have no foundation in fact. But I shall be very careful to have my characters talk and act naturally. To do this I shall have to study the people whom I wish to characterize."

      He was moved by an inward mirth. "You're still thinkin' of puttin' me into the book?" he questioned.

      She nodded, smiling.

      "Then," he said, very gravely, "you hadn't ought to have told me. You didn't show so clever there. Ain't you afraid that I'll go to actin' swelled? If I do that, you'd not have the character you wanted."

      "I had thought of that, too," she returned seriously. "If you were that kind of a man I shouldn't want you in the book. How do you know that I haven't told you for the purpose of discovering if you would be affected in that manner?"

      He scratched his head, contemplating her gravely. "I reckon you're travelin' too fast for me, ma'am," he said.

      His expression of frank amusement was good to see. He stood before her, plainly ready to surrender. Absolutely boyish, he seemed to her—a grown-up boy to be sure, but with a boy's enthusiasms, impulses, and generosity. Yet in his eyes was something that told of maturity, of conscious power, of perfect trust in his ability to give a good account of himself, even in this country where these qualities constituted the chief rule of life.

      A strange emotion stirred her, a sudden quickening of the pulse told her that something new had come into her life. She drew a deep, startled breath and felt her cheeks crimsoning. She swiftly turned her head and gazed out over the flat, leaving him standing there, scarcely comprehending her embarrassment.

      "I reckon you've been writin' some of that book, ma'am," he said, seeing the papers lying on the rock beside her. "I don't see why you should want to write a Western story. Do folks in the East get interested in knowin' what's goin' on out here?"

      She suddenly thought of herself. Had she found it interesting? She looked swiftly at him, appraising him from a new viewpoint, feeling a strange, new interest in him.

      "It would be strange if they didn't," she returned. "Why, it is the only part of the country in which there still remains a touch of romance. You must remember that this is a young country; that its history began at a comparatively late date. England can write of its feudal barons; France of its ancient aristocracy; but America can look back only to the Colonial period—and the West."

      "Mebbe you're right," he said, not convinced. "But I expect there ain't a heap of romance out here. Leastways, if there is it manages to keep itself pretty well hid."

      She smiled, thinking of the romance that surrounded him—of which, plainly, he was not conscious. To him, romance meant the lights, the crowds, the amusements, the glitter and tinsel of the cities of the East, word of which had come to him through various channels. To her these things were no longer novel,—if they had ever been so—and so for her romance must come from the new, the unusual, the unconventional. The West was all this, therefore romance dwelt here.

      "Of course it all seems commonplace to you," she returned; "perhaps even monotonous. For you have lived here long."

      He laughed. "I've traveled a heap," he said. "I've been in California, Dakota, Wyoming, Texas, an' Arizona. An' now I'm here. Savin' a man meets different people, this country is pretty much all the same."

      "You must have had a great deal of experience," she said. "And you are not very old."

      He gravely considered her. "I would say that I am about the average age for this country. You see, folks don't live to get very old out here—unless they're mighty careful."

      "And you haven't been careful?"

      He smiled gravely. "I expect you wouldn't call it careful. But I'm still livin'."

      His words were singularly free from boast.

      "That means that you have escaped the dangers," she said. "I have heard that a man's safety in this country depends largely upon his ability to shoot quickly and accurately. I suppose you are accounted a good shot?"

      The question was too direct. His eyes narrowed craftily.

      "I expect you're thinkin' of that book now ma'am," he said. "There's a heap of men c'n shoot. You might say they're all good shots. I've told you about the men who can't shoot good. They're either mighty careful, or they ain't here any more. It's always one or the other."

      "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, shuddering slightly. "In that case I suppose the hero in my story will have to be a good shot." She laughed. "I shouldn't want him to get half way through the story and then be killed because he was clumsy in handling his weapon. I am beginning to believe that I shall have to make him a 'two-gun' man. I understand they are supposed to be very good shots."

      "I've seen them that wasn't," he returned gravely and shortly.

      "How did you prove that?" she asked suddenly.

      But he was not to be snared. "I didn't say I'd proved it," he stated. "But I've seen it proved."

      "How proved?"

      "Why," he said, his eyes glinting with amusement, "they ain't here any more, ma'am."

      "Oh. Then it doesn't follow that because a man wears two guns he is more likely to survive than is the man who wears only one?"

      "I reckon not, ma'am."

      "I see that you have the bottoms of your holsters tied down," she said, looking at them. "Why have you done that?"

      "Well," he declared, drawling his words a little, "I've always found that there ain't any use of takin' chances on an accident. You mightn't live to tell about it. An' havin' the bottoms of your holsters tied down keeps your guns from snaggin'. I've seen men whose guns got snagged when they wanted to use them. They wasn't so active after."

      "Then I shall have to make my hero a 'two-gun' man," she said. "That is decided. Now, the next thing to do is to give some attention to his character. I think he ought to be absolutely fearless and honest and incapable of committing a dishonorable deed. Don't you think so?"

      While they had talked he had come closer to her and stood beside the shelf rock, one foot resting on it. At

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