"Good morning," said the man politely. "I hope I haven't disturbed your

nap."

The girl eyed him solemnly, and said nothing. This was a new kind of man.

He was not like the one from whom she had fled, nor like any she had ever

seen; but he might be a great deal worse. She had heard that the world was

full of wickedness.

"You see," went on the man with an apologetic smile, which lit up his eyes

in a wonderfully winning way, "you led me such a desperate race nearly all

day yesterday that I was obliged to keep you in sight when I finally

caught you."

He looked for an answering smile, but there was none. Instead, the girl's

dark eyes grew wide and purple with fear. He was the same one, then, that

she had seen in the afternoon, the voice who had cried to her; and he had

been pursuing her. He was an enemy, perhaps, sent by the man from whom she

fled. She grasped her pistol with trembling fingers, and tried to think

what to say or do.

The young man wondered at the formalities of the plains. Were all these

Western maidens so reticent?

"Why did you follow me? Who did you think I was?" she asked breathlessly

at last.

"Well, I thought you were a man," he said; "at least, you appeared to be a

human being, and not a wild animal. I hadn't seen anything but wild

animals for six hours, and very few of those; so I followed you."

The girl was silent. She was not reassured. It did not seem to her that

her question was directly answered. The young man was playing with her.

"What right had you to follow me?" she demanded fiercely.

"Well, now that you put it in that light, I'm not sure that I had any

right at all, unless it may be the claim that every human being has upon

all creation."

His arms were folded now across his broad brown flannel chest, and the

pistols gleamed in his belt below like fine ornaments. He wore a

philosophical expression, and looked at his companion as if she were a new

specimen of the human kind, and he was studying her variety, quite

impersonally, it is true, but interestedly. There was something in his

look that angered the girl.

"What do you want?" She had never heard of the divine claims of all the

human family. Her one instinct at present was fear.




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