"It's sure snug and warm," she said approvingly, as her head came out of the opening. "I won't need my coat." "No; there's no warmth in it," he said, looking disdainfully at the thin, cheap garment. "Throw it away." "With pleasure," she replied gaily. "Here's to my winter garment of repentance." She flung the coat out on the road. "What did you say?" he asked perplexedly. "Nothing original. Just some words I st-t--I mean, borrowed." She fastened back her hair and picked up her hat. "Don't put that on!" he exclaimed, making another search under the seat and bringing forth a soft cap. She set it jauntily on her curls. "How do you feel now? Well enough to ride on?" "Yes; I am feeling 'fair and warmer' every minute." When the car started, she relapsed into silence. The sunshine was flooding the treeless hills and mellowing the cool, clean air. Up and down, as far as the eye could follow, which was very far in this land of great distances, the trail sought the big dominant hills that broke the sky-line before them. The outlook was restful, hopeful, fortifying. "How are you--all right?" he asked presently. "Perfectly all right. It's grand up here in all these high spots." "Wait until we reach the hills around our ranch," he boasted. Then he laughed shortly. "I say 'our.' I'm only the foreman." "What are you going to tell _her_ about me?" she asked curiously, after another silence. He slackened the pace and looked at her closely. The sweater and the sunshine had brought a faint tinge of wild-rose color to the transparency of her skin. The flippancy and boldness so prominent in her eyes the day before had disappeared. She looked more as she had when she was asleep in the moonlight. A wave of kindness and brotherliness swept over him. "I am going to tell her," he said gently, "that you are a poor little girl who needs a friend." "Is that all you will tell her?" "You may tell her as much or as little of your story as you think you should." "You are a good man, but," she added thoughtfully, "the best of men don't understand women's ways toward each other. If I tell her my sordid little story, she may not want to help me--at least, not want to keep me up here in her home. I've not found women very helpful." "She will help you and keep you, because--" he hesitated, and then continued earnestly, "before she was married, she was a settlement worker in a large city and she understood such--" "As I," she finished. "I know the settlement workers. They write you up--or down--in a sort of a Rogue Record, and you are classified, indexed, filed and treated by a system." "She isn't that kind!" he protested indignantly. "She does her work by her heart, not by system. Have you ever really tried to reform?"