For we cannot think beyond our fountain head, nor can we even dream beyond the souls of the two things who gave us birth. There are men born in this age of ripeness, born with an alphabet in their mouths and reared in the regal ways of learning, who can neither read nor write. And yet had Shakespeare been born without a language, he would have carved his thoughts as pictures on the trees. Harry Travis was born as so many others are--not only without a language, but without a soul within him upon which a picture might be drawn. And so it kept running in his mind, quietly, cold-bloodedly, tactfully down the narrow, crooked, slum-alleys of his mind: "I will--I will drop her--now!" She ceased--there were tears in her eyes and her face was blanched whiter even than the cloud. He arose quickly and glanced at the setting sun: "Oh, say, but I must get the Gov'nor's mare back. Jim will miss her at feeding time." There was a laugh on his lips and his foot was already in the stirrup. "Sorry to be in such a hurry just now, too--because there is so much I want to say to you on that subject--awful sorry--but the Gov'nor will raise Cain if he knows what I've done. I'll just write you a long letter to-night--and I'll be over, maybe, soon--ta--ta--but this mare, confound her--see how she cuts up--so sorry I can't stay longer--but I'll write--to-night." He threw her a kiss as he rode off. She sat dazed, numbed, with the shallowness of it all--the shale of sham which did not even conceal the base sub-stratum of deceit below. Nothing like it had ever come into her life before. She dropped down behind the rock, but instead of tears there came steel. In it all she could only say with her lips white, a defiant poise of her splendid head, and with a flash of the eyes which came with the Conway aroused: "Oh, and I kissed him--and--and--I loved him!" She sat on the rock again and looked at the sunset. She was too hurt now to go home--she wished to be alone. She was a strong girl--mentally--and with a deep nature; but she was proud, and so she sat and crushed it in her pride and strength, though to do it shook her as the leaves were now being shaken by the breeze which had sprung up at sunset. She thought she could conquer--that she had conquered--then, as the breeze died away, and the leaves hung still and limp again, her pride went with the breeze and she fell again on her knees by the big rock, fell and buried her face there in the cool moss and cried: "Oh, and I loved that thing!" Ten minutes later she sat pale and smiling. The Conway pride had conquered, but it was a dangerous conquest, for steel and tears had mingled to make it. In her despair she even plucked another cotton bloom from her bosom as if trying to force herself to be happy again in saying: "One, I love--two, I love, Three, I love, I say--"