When he ceased talking the silence became profound, for she had nothing to say and speech did not come easy to her anyway. He did not know that at the windows and behind the door-jambs of the deep old house were clustered almost a dozen dusky women and children, drawn from all over the place and listening in utter silence. Unconsciously he had drifted back to his life in the outside world, encouraged by the absorbing interest of the pale eyes that never left his face. He told Ellen of boat races on the Hudson, of theatres on Broadway, of college pranks and frolics, ranged over half the continent in little story and snatch of description. Neither one noticed how the shadows were lengthening, nor that the sun had dropped in majesty behind the mighty Wall. It took the sound of running horses, many of them coming up along the slopes, to bring Kenset back to the present with a snap, to make the woman reach swiftly for the bonnet and clap it on her head. "Mrs. Courtrey," said Kenset hurriedly, "this has been the first real talk I have had with any of my neighbours, and I want to thank you for it." "Oh," quavered the woman, "I don't know as I'd ought to a-let you stayed! Mebby I'd oughtn't. But--but seems like you bein' so different, an' I not seein' no one, come day in day out, w'y I--I--" "Sure," he returned quickly, understanding. "You did just right. I wanted to stay." Then he rose to his feet and there came the thunder of the horses, the noise of men stopping from a run, dismounting. Ellen rose and he followed her around the corner of the house to the door yard. As they waited, Courtrey, clad in dark leather chaps, his guns swinging, came toward them. At sight of Kenset he stopped short and an oath rolled from his lips. The kerchief at his neck was turned knot-back and hung like a glob of crimson blood upon his breast. Under his hat, set at an angle, his dark hair fluffed strangely. He was a splendid figure of a man, broad shouldered, slim hipped. Now he looked hard at the stranger and a slow grin lifted his upper lip. "What's this?" he said, and there was a light suspicion of thickness in his voice, "my wife got com-ny?" Kenset heard the woman catch her breath, and the feeling of pity that had taken him at first for her intensified. "No, Mr. Courtrey," he said advancing, "but you have," and he held out his hand. "I'm Kenset, from the foothills." Courtrey, not four feet from him, did not look at the hand. Instead the glittering eyes under the hat-brim looked steadily into his with an expression that only one man in a hundred could have interpreted. That one man, however, stood by the watering trough, his hand on the neck of a drinking horse--Cleve Whitmore who watched Courtrey without blinking. For a moment Kenset stood so, his hand extended, waiting. Then the colour rose in his face and he drew back the hand, raised it, scrutinized it smilingly, and put it quietly on his hip.