She shook her head. "No. Some one ask me—but you have not seen him. That is good. Once I tell you I am glad if you come to see me about Fritz." "Shore I ’ll come," he promised heartily. "You must not," she warned him. "In the morning, a little while, yes; at night or to stay long—no." A light broke in upon Buck, who recalled the mysteriously delivered letter of that morning. The wholesome admiration for a lovely woman, the natural pleasure in an experience infrequent in his man-surrounded life, began to concentrate and take definite shape in his mind at the promised vindication of his judgment. He tested her shrewdly: "You don’t want to see me," was his brusque comment. She looked reproachfully at his set profile. "_Mais, quelle folie_! I am glad to see you always," she assured him, "but it must be like that. It is better." She hesitated a moment and continued: "It is better _aussi_, if you will not play cards. I—I like it, much, if you will not play cards." Her heightened color and diffident manner showed what it cost her to make it a personal request. "By G—d! I knew it," cried Buck. He whanged Allday over one eye with his hat, and that sedate animal executed a side jump that would have done credit to a real bad pony. There are limits to all things and Allday was feeling pretty good just then, anyway. Rose was startled. "What is it you know?" she asked, doubtfully. Buck’s face was alight with smiling gratification. Oblivious of the fact that at last he had stung Allday into remonstrance, he answered by the card, "I knowed that gamblin’ habit ’d grow on me so my friends could see it. An’ I hereby swears off. I never touches a deck till you says so, ma’am. That goes as it lays." Still doubtful as to his meaning—such exuberance of feeling could scarcely be induced by swearing off anything—she questioned him in some embarrassment. "Is it I ask too much, that you will not play?" "Too much! There ain’t nothin’ you can’t ask me, nothin’—" he paused. "It’s time I was hittin’ th’ back trail ’fore I say mor’n I ought. Just one thing, ma’am: I can’t never know you better than I do right now. An’ I want to say I ’m right proud to know you." He drew Allday down to a walk and halted as she stopped and faced him, sweeping her a salute as eloquent in gesture as were his words in speech. The color came and went in her cheeks as she regarded him. "I am glad," she said at last, "Oh, I am very glad," and turning, she left him at a speed that vied with her racing thoughts. Buck watched her go, the definite shape in his mind assuming a seductiveness that fascinated while it scared him. "If I was only ten years younger," he muttered. He jerked Allday’s head around. "Get away, boy," he cried, and the horse struck his gait at a bound. Buck was riding wide of the ranch house when a suspicion pricked him and he headed for home. At the door he shouted for Jake. Jake lounged out. "What’s th’ noise?" he asked, languidly.