But the one thing that was always right between Hilda and Pearse was their feeling for this beautiful plains country of the West. They both loved it! Like her, Pearse would rather ride than anything in the world. She was crazy to have him see the Three Sorrows in daylight; for you couldn’t get any idea of things at night, which was the only time he had to get out and move about; and, of course, he couldn’t have got any real view of the place that day he came in over it, afoot, half starved, parched with thirst, thinking only of some place to hide. Finally, she did get Sam Kee to keep watch, when everybody else was out of the way, and she took Pearse out through the front door, all the way down the box-elder avenue to the trail, back again, around by way of the _asequia_, past the spring and the kitchen garden, to the corrals and stables, and out into the home pasture, where some of the best horses were. He praised it all, as she had been so eager to hear him do. And Hilda had been anxious, without saying a word of the sort, to show him how well Uncle Hank managed and took care of them all. She was the more urgent about this, since she felt, down deep in her heart, that she didn’t actually want Pearse to meet Uncle Hank—this time. He’d come back some day, when all the tangles had been straightened out, and then—it was breathless, exciting to have him all her own guest, her responsibility—but, oh, she loved it! And the long talks in the cyclone cellar, when he told her how he came to be adrift here in the western cattle country, heading for a job over on a New Mexico ranch—they were like chapters out of a story—a much more fascinating story than any in the books. When he and Hilda saw each other last, he’d been a rich man’s son, just back from Europe, where he had been traveling with his parents. Now both Mr. and Mrs. Masters were dead. “They weren’t my real parents, you know, Hilda,” he explained. “I was only an adopted son.” Hilda’s heart gave a little bound; the wandering heir—the prince in disguise—was an adopted son. Pearse was going on: “They had other children—grown and married. We’d traveled around a lot, in Italy and Switzerland. My tutor went with us. We lived in England a while, and a while in Italy; and one whole summer in Ireland; and in those places I went to school. Gee!” she heard a little gulp, “I was happy then. But Father got called home on some important business, and the next day after we landed in New York he was killed—in a street-car accident.” “Papa was killed in a roundup,” murmured Hilda. “Taken suddenly that way,” Pearse went on, “his business was left all at loose ends. Mother went to live with her married daughter. I felt I couldn’t go there—except to see her. They didn’t like me. Well—I guess they hated me.” “Why would they?” Hilda bristled. “Natural enough,” said Pearse easily. “I suppose they’d never wanted Father and Mother to adopt me—a poor little rat running away from an uncle that beat him.”