from the Oregon country to the States, had bivouacked with them and told them that the

tripes by the buffalo runs. Susan's glance, questing ahead for the New York train, ran to the distance where the crystal glaze of the stream shrunk to a silver thread imbedded in

y that was so remote its color had faded to an aerial pallor. As the journey had advanced the influence of these spacious areas had crept upon her. In the beginning there had been times when they woke in her an unexplained sadness. Now that was gone and

her recollections of what was now a dead phase of her life. She was slightly impatient of its contented smallness, of her satisfaction with such things as her sewing, her cake making, her childish conferences with girl friends on the vine-grown porch. They seemed strangely trivial and unmeaning compared to the exhilarating pres

hn, and a few real friends, and a library of good books. His enthusiasm made her dimly realize the gulf between them-the gulf between the idealist and the materialist-that neither had yet recognized and that only she, of the two, instinctively felt. The roughness of the journey irked David. The toil of the days wore on his nerves. She co

d not from coquetry either. Loth and reluctant she clung to her independence. A rival might have warmed her to a more coming-on mood, but there was no rival. When by silence or raillery she had shut off the avowal she was relieved and yet half despised him for permitting her to take the lead. Why h

-and perhaps it was unkind of her not to let the matter be settled. And at that she gave a petulant wriggle of her shoulders under her cot

elf that he would do certain things and brought her horse to a walk that she might come upon him noiselessly and watch. Of course he did them, built up her fire and kindled it, arranged her skillets beside it and had a fresh pail of wa

een. Not a sign of a wagon

id: "Oh, you're back, Susan," and re

tanding with her hands on his shoulders told him of her ride. She was very pretty just then, her hair loose on her sunburned brow, her face all love and smiles. But David bent over his fire, did not rai

usan agreed to his suggestion to ride to the bluffs after supper and see the plains under the full moon. So salutary had been his momentary neglect of her that she went in a ch

ness, from each of which ran the narrow path of the buffalo. The line of hills, silver-washed and black-caverned, was like a rampart thrown across the entrance to the land of mystery, and they like the pygmy men of fairyland come to gain an entry. It was David who tho

blue diamond. They turned into it and began a scrambling ascent, the horses' hoofs slipping into the gutter tha

ver his shoulder. "Doesn't this seem as if it ought

hes," she answered. "If you don'

the foreground, darkening as it receded. In the arch above no cloud filmed the clearness, the moon, huge and mottled, dominating the sky. The silence was penetrating; not a bre

l spread on the grass. They could not hear its murmur or see the shifting disturbance of its shallows, only received the large

as if they were alive and knew

in the moonlight," sh

man and a drop of human

a. Let's walk on

rt, chilled the girl's high self-reliance. Among her fellows, in a setting of light and action, she was all proud independence. Deprived of them she suffered a diminution of confidence and became if not clinging, at least a fe

side her arm, timidly, it is true, ready to snatch it back at the first rebuff. But there was none, so he kept it there and they walked on. Their talk was fragmentary, murmured sentences that they forgot to finish, phrases trailing off into silence as if they had not clear enough wits to fit words together, or as if word

hich way his feet bore him, but blindly went on, looking down at the profile almost against his shoulder, at the hand under which his had slid, small and white in the transforming light. His silence was not like hers, the expression

rself to meet it. The mystical hour, the silver-bathed wonder of the night, a girl's frightened curiosity, combined to win her to a listening mood. She felt on the eve of a painful but necessary ordeal, and

erienced so distracting a sense of discomfort. When David was half way through she would have given anything to have stopped him, or to have run away. But she was determined now to stand it, to go through with it and be engaged as other girls were and as her fat

e could see his pallor, the drops on his brow, the drawn desperation of his face. She had never in her life seen anyo

er face. She held it down, not so much from modesty as from

lways have. Quite a gr

etimes I thought so and the next day you were al

estion now fairly put, he carefully avoided doing. Taller than she he loom

son. Though she vaguely understood that she still dominated him, she saw that her dominion came from something much more subtle than verbal command and imperious bearing. All confusion and bewi

he monosyllable on a caught breath and then held her head even lower and felt an agg

ed his face into his hands, and stood thus for a moment without moving. She peered at him uneasily, like a child at some one suffering from an unknown complaint and giving evidence of the suffering in stra

zed with keen disappointment that she had felt nothing in the least resembling joy. An inward shrinking as the bearded lips came in contact with her skin was all she was conscious of. There was no rapture, no up-gush of anything lovely

had breath, to express the passion that was in him. Inexperienced as she, he thought it sweet and beautiful that she should

something simple and natural and break the intolerable silence. Finally, she felt that she could endure it no longer, and putting her hand to her forehead, pushed back her hair

k? We've been a

or for their feet, in the starless sky the great orb soared. The girl's embarrassment left her and she felt herself peacefully settling into a contented acquiescence. She looked up at him, a tall shape, black between h

he endured it patiently but was glad when he let her go and she was in the saddle, a place where she felt more at home than in a man's arms with her face crushed against his shirt, turning to avoid its rough

night, were apt to contain more of that distressful talk. She called a quick "Good night" to him, and then dove into her tent and sat down on the blankets. T

o her but a mortifying sensation of being inadequate to a crisis. She heard David's voice exchanging a low good night with the old man, and she hearkened anxiously, still hopeful of the thrill. But again