She smiled naturally at him now, fluffing out her dark hair that hung like an Indian's in heavy braids; and Bowles' face lighted up and then flushed a rosy red. "I see you are feeling better," he said, sitting down off to one side, and decorously regarding his wet hat, "so how did it happen?" "Well," began Dixie, ruefully inspecting her torn hands, "all I can remember is feeling my horse going down and jerking my feet out of the stirrups--then I fetched up in that juniper. I scrambled out the minute I struck--afraid old Rufus would fall on me--and that's where I hurt my knee--I bumped it against a rock." She felt the injured limb over carefully and shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't travel on that for a while," she said. "So get me your coat to put under it and prop it up, and we'll talk about something pleasant. It'll be all right, I reckon, after I rest a while, but that fall certainly jarred me up. "Say," she observed, as Bowles came back with his coat, "that was pretty good, wasn't it, what I was telling you the other day--about nursing you back to health and strength. Looks like you're the nurse, the way it turns out. But you're going to make a good one," she went on, as he tucked the coat under her knee; "I can see that. Now, most people, when you get a hurt, or a fall, or something, they come rushing up to where you're making faces and ask a lot of foolish questions--'Are you hurt?' and 'Did you fall?' and all that, until you want to kill 'em. But you haven't hardly said a word." "No," said Bowles, blushing and looking away. "I'm awfully sorry you fell--hope I didn't make you. Is there anything more I can do?" "Oh, that's all right," she assured him. "We all take a fall once in a while. I feel kind of weak and trifling right now--but don't go! No, I want you here for company!" Bowles had stood up on a pretext of looking after the horses, but Dixie was firm. "No, you stay," she said, as he explained that she might wish to be alone. "You're out West now, Bowles, and you remember what Hardy Atkins told you--'if a lady asks you to take a letter, _take it_!' Of course, that was none of Hardy's business, but that's the rule out here, and I want you to come back and sit down. No, not away over there--I want you right up close!" Bowles came back as readily as a dog, but he did not sit very close. For some reason unknown to himself he assumed that she would be embarrassed, not only by their isolated position but by the intimacies which had arisen between them. Moved by a strong and humane purpose, he had gathered her up in his arms and carried her down the hill; but hardly had he felt her arm about his neck, her breath against his cheek, and her heart against his breast, when the dimensions of his world had suddenly narrowed down, and there was only Dixie Lee and him. And now he was still dazed and breathless, afraid of himself, and not trusting in his strength--and yet he would do anything to please her.