The Golden Woman

At last he had his reward. The girl made a movement almost like a shiver. Then she sat up erect. The color came back to her cheeks and she turned to him with eyes in which a ghost of a smile flitted.

"I--I had forgotten," she said half-apologetically. "This is what has brought prosperity to the camp. This is what has saved them from starvation. We--we should owe it gratitude."

"I don't guess the rocks need gratitude," replied Buck quietly.

"No!"

Joan looked up at the black roof above her and shivered.

"It's a weird place, where one might well expect weird happenings."

Buck smiled. He was beginning to obtain some insight into the girl's mood. So used was he to the gloomy hill that its effect was quite lost on him. Now he knew that some superstitious chord had been struck in the girl's feelings, and this strange hill had been the medium of its expression.

He suddenly leant forward. Resting on the horn of his saddle he looked into the fair face he so loved. He had seen that haunted look in her face before. He remembered his first meeting with her at the barn. Its termination had troubled him then. It had troubled him since. He remembered the incident when the gold had been presented to her. Again he had witnessed that hunted, terrified look, that strange overpowering of some painful thought--or memory.

Now he felt that she needed support, and strove with all his power to afford it her.

"Guess ther's nothing weird outside the mind of man," he said. "Anyway, nothing that needs to scare folk." He turned and surveyed the hill and the wonderful green country surrounding them. "Get a look around," he went on, with a comprehensive gesture. "This rock--it's just rock, natural rock; it's rock you'll find most anywhere. It's got dumped down right here wher' most things are green, an' dandy, an' beautiful to the eye; so it looks queer, an' sets your thoughts gropin' among the cobwebs of mystery. Ther's sure no life to it but the life of rock. This great overhang has just been cut by washouts of centuries in spring, when the creek's in flood, an' it just happens ther's a hot sulphur lake on top, fed by a spring. I've known it these years an' years. Guess it's sure always been the same. It ain't got enough to it to scare a jack-rabbit."

Joan shook her head. But the man was glad to see the return of her natural expression, and that her smiling eyes were filled with a growing interest He knew that her strange mood was passing.