Dora laughed, and, looking at him, noticed, as she often had before, the wonderful vividness with which his varying moods were reflected in his face, completely altering his expression. He looked boyish, brimming with the buoyant spirits of youth. His skin had unwonted clearness, his eyes were bright, his face was animated; he seemed to radiate exuberant good-humor. Even his voice was different and his laugh was less hard. As he walked away with the Schoolmarm's basket swinging on his arm, he was for the time what he should have been always. He had long since made ample apology to Dora for his offense and there had been no further outbreak from him of which to complain. The day's work was cut out for Ralston also, when he saw Yellow Bird and another Indian ride away, each leading a pack-horse, and learned from Ling that they had gone to butcher. They started off over the reservation, in the direction in which the MacDonald cattle ranged; with the intention, Ralston supposed, of circling and coming out on the Bar C range. He thought that by keeping well to the draws and gulches he could remain fairly well hidden and yet keep them in sight. He heard voices, and turned a hill just in time to see Smith take a flower gently from Dora's hand and, with some significant word, lay it with care between the leaves of a pocket note-book. Though it looked more to Ralston, all that Smith had said was, "It might bring me luck." And Dora had smiled at his superstition. Ralston would have turned back had it not been too late: his horse's feet among the rocks had caused them to look up. As he passed Dora replied to some commonplace, with heightened color, and Smith stared in silent triumph. Ralston cursed himself and the mischance which had taken him to that spot. "She'll think I was spying upon her, like some ignorant, jealous fool!" he told himself savagely. "Why, why, is it that I must always blunder upon such scenes, to make me miserable for days! Can it be--can it possibly be," he asked himself--"that she cares for the man; that she encourages him; that she has a foolish, Quixotic notion that she can raise him to her own level?" Was there really good in the man which he, Ralston, was unable to see? Was he too much in love with Dora himself to be just to Smith, he wondered. "No, no!" he reiterated vehemently. "No man who would abuse a horse is fit for a good woman to marry. I'm right about him--I know I am. But can I prove it in time to save her?--not for myself, for I guess I've no show; but from him?" With a heartache which seemed to have become chronic of late, Ralston followed the Indians' lead up hill and down, through sand coulees and between cut-banks, at a leisurely pace. They seemed in no hurry, nor did they make any apparent effort to conceal themselves. They rode through several herds of cattle, and passed on, drifting gradually toward the creek bottom close to the reservation line, where both Bar C and I. D. cattle came to drink.