If there be a latent awkwardness in a man, the saddle mirrors it; and if there lie in him anywhere dormant an unsuspected alertness, it wakes in the saddle to action. Her companion had hardly found his stirrups before Kate perceived a change. His body sprung molded from the cantle, his careless shoulders came to attention, and as the pony curvetted riotously, the rider's head, rising like a monitor straight from his slender neck, invited his horse to show its paces. "You take the trail," said Kate's guest tersely, as they swung out on the desert. "No," she returned, "you." "We'll take it together," was his reply. But despite her disclaiming, Kate did the guiding and her object was to get a good way from town. Her companion's frequently repeated effort was to slow down for a talk; hers was to tantalize him by speeding away from one. But she couldn't speed all of the time, and he eyed either her riding, or her habit, pretty closely for a good while without comment. Then a chance offered itself and he put a question: "Where did you learn to ride?" "All mountain girls ride, don't they?" she suggested. "You're not a mountain girl." "It was a mountain girl that taught me to ride,--away back in the Alleghanies--long before I ever saw this country." "Your mountain girl's pupils don't all ride like that, I'll gamble." "I wasn't very bright." Kate spurred ahead. The dun pony kept after her. "Compliments don't set very well on you, do they?" was the shot from her left a moment later. She turned a full face on her companion: "I hate them," she declared with energy. In luring this man away from his errand, she had yielded to a really wild impulse and now the spirit of recklessness that ruled her mood seemed to revenge itself by counseling added dangers. She invited riding-hazards, that her victim disdained to comment on, until they must have appeared silly to him. A long way from home they were crossing a high bench above the Falling Wall river, a bench cut by frequent lateral washes--some wide and all very deep. These breaks they jumped one after another without taking serious trouble to head them, though Kate's companion, riding on the river side, gave her every chance to do so. "I suppose," he suggested at length, "you're pushing into rough country because you like it." She looked at him: "Yes," she said, icily, "I do like it. But," she added, "if it's too rough for you, we'll go back." In that much of a challenge she felt safe. "I'm riding with you," he returned, a little dryly. "I like anything you like."