This was no penitential pilgrimage but a glad and glorious journey, ending, as journeys should, in lovers’ meeting, and this time she had indeed set the stage; she had been doing it ever since she had felt the sudden tightening of his arms about her as they danced in the Lodge to the wheedling, coaxing music of the old slave tune. “Come out!” he had said, imperatively. “Come down to the creek; I must talk to you. Will you come, Ginger? You _must_ come!” She remembered every commonplace syllable and invested it with poesy and ardor, and she planned rosily for the scene of their reunion and reconciliation. She wished a little that she might have worn her riding suit of deep cream linen with the scarlet tie and hat band instead of her seasoned corduroy, but corduroy was the only wear for work of this sort, and Dean Wolcott himself, the new Dean Wolcott, wore corduroy now; he had put on the official uniform of the outdoor working west. And besides, she told herself contentedly, she was bringing him other adornments; she took stock, with a proud humility which was new and strange to Ginger McVeagh, of her more careful speech, her gentler judgments, the clever choosing of her clothes, her honest appreciation of the things of his world. Her heart warmed at the memory of Dean Wolcott’s sympathy with Elmer Bunty’s great moment, the other night, riding madly up on the lady horse to bring the news of the forest fire, of the way in which he had kept his Scout in the limelight for an instant. Dr. Mayfield had told her that the child would never live to grow up; he gave him, in fact, hardly more than a year, but Ginger, riding the high wave of happiness, told herself that she would prove her friend wrong for once in his wise life. Elmer Bunty should go to Dos Pozos to be cuddled by old Manuela and fed by Ling, to drink golden milk and sleep out in the tonic air all through the calendar; death on a pale horse riding should be routed--she felt strong and victorious as she thought of it. Great surges of joy went over her as they had done when she sat in her perch at Carnegie Hall, hearing her first symphonies. But no surges of joy of any size whatever were going over Pedro; the wretched animal was plodding miserably, his head hanging, and the girl drew rein, dismounted, and pulled off the saddle with guilty haste. She would give him a half hour of rest while she ate her supper, and then go on at a very moderate pace, walking where the grade was steepest.