There was a bright light in the engineer's office across the street. She could see Arnold through the windows (for, like a man, he did not pull his shades down) at one of the long drawing-tables. He worked late, it seemed. He was writing; he wrote rapidly page after page, tearing each sheet from what appeared to be a paper block, and tossing it on the table beside him; he covered only one side of the paper, she noticed, thinking with a smile of her own small economies. Presently he got up, swept the papers together in his hands, and stooped over them. He is numbering and folding them, she thought, and now he is directing the envelope,--to whom, I wonder! He turned, and as he walked towards the window she saw him put something into the pocket of his coat. He lighted a cigar, and began walking, with long strides, up and down the room, one hand in his pocket; the other he occasionally rubbed over his eyes and head, as if they hurt him. She remembered that the engineer had headaches, and wished that somebody would ask him to try valerian. Is he ever really lonely? she thought. What can he, what can any man, know of loneliness? He may go out and walk about on the hills; he may go away altogether, and take the risks of life somewhere else. A woman must take no risks. There is not a house in the camp where he might not enter to-night, if he chose; he might come over here and talk to me. The East, with all its cherished memories and prejudices and associations, seemed so hopelessly far away; they two alone, in that strange, uncongenial new world which had crowded out the old, seemed to speak a common language: and yet how little she really knew of him! Suddenly the lights disappeared from the windows of the office. She heard a door unlock, and presently the young man's figure crossed the street and turned up the trail past the house. Two other figures going up halted, and the taller one said, “Will you go up on the hill, to-night, Arnold?” “What for?” said Arnold, slackening his pace without stopping. “Oh, nothing in particular,--to see the señoritas.” “Oh, thank you, Boker, I've seen the señoritas.” He walked quickly past the men, and the shorter one, who had not spoken, called after him rather huskily,-- “W-what do you think of the little school-ma'am?” Arnold turned back and confronted the speaker in silence. “I say! Is she thin 'nough to suit you?” the heavy-playful one persisted. “Shut up, Jack!” said his comrade. “You're a little high now, you know.” He dragged him on, up the trail; the voices of the two men blended with the night chorus of the camp as they passed out of sight.