They rode on in silence for a little while; he removed his cap and stuffed it into his pocket. "It's good for my hair," he commented, aloud; "I'm not married, you see, and it behooves a man to keep what hair he has until he's married." As she said nothing, he went on, reflectively: "Eminent authorities have computed that a man with lots of hair on his head stands thirty and nineteen-hundredths better chance with a girl than a man who has but a scanty crop. A man with curly hair has eighty-seven chances in a hundred, a man with wavy hair has seventy-nine, a man--" "Mr. Burleson," she said, exasperated, "I am utterly at a loss to understand what it is in you that I find attractive enough to endure you." "Seventy-nine," he ventured--"my hair is wavy--" She touched her mare and galloped forward, and he followed through the yellow sunshine, attendant always on her caprice, ready for any sudden whim. So when she wheeled to the left and lifted her mare over a snake-fence, he was ready to follow; and together they tore away across a pasture, up a hill all purple with plumy bunch-grass, and forward to the edge of a gravel-pit, where she whirled her mare about, drew bridle, and flung up a warning hand just in time. His escape was narrower; his horse's hind hoofs loosened a section of undermined sod; the animal stumbled, sank back, strained with every muscle, and dragged himself desperately forward; while behind him the entire edge of the pit gave way, crashing and clattering into the depths below. They were both rather white when they faced each other. "Don't take such a risk again," he said, harshly. "I won't," she answered, with dry lips; but she was not thinking of herself. Suddenly she became very humble, guiding her mare alongside of his horse, and in a low voice asked him to pardon her folly. And, not thinking of himself, he scored her for the risk she had taken, alternately reproaching, arguing, bullying, pleading, after the fashion of men. And, still shaken by the peril she had so wilfully sought, he asked her not to do it again, for his sake--an informal request that she accepted with equal informality and a slow droop of her head. Never had she received such a thorough, such a satisfying scolding. There was not one word too much--every phrase refreshed her, every arbitrary intonation sang in her ears like music. And so far not one selfish note had been struck. She listened, eyes downcast, face delicately flushed--listened until it pleased him to make an end, which he did with amazing lack of skill: "What do you suppose life would hold for _me_ with you at the bottom of that gravel-pit?" The selfish note rang out, unmistakable, imperative--the clearest, sweetest note of all to her. But the question was no question and required no answer. Besides, he had said enough--just enough. "Let us ride home," she said, realizing that they were on dangerous ground again--dangerous as the gravel-hill.