Quietly Madeline arose, with a gesture to the dogs, and went back along the trail toward camp. Succeeding her surprise was a feeling of sorrow that Stewart’s regeneration had not been complete. Sorrow gave place to insufferable distrust that while she had been romancing about this cowboy, dreaming of her good influence over him, he had been merely base. Somehow it stung her. Stewart had been nothing to her, she thought, yet she had been proud of him. She tried to revolve the thing, to be fair to him, when every instinctive tendency was to expel him, and all pertaining to him, from her thoughts. And her effort at sympathy, at extenuation, failed utterly before her pride. Exerting her will-power, she dismissed Stewart from her mind. Madeline did not think of him again till late that afternoon, when, as she was leaving her tent to join several of her guests, Stewart appeared suddenly in her path. “Miss Hammond, I saw your tracks down the trail,” he began, eagerly, but his tone was easy and natural. “I’m thinking—well, maybe you sure got the idea—” “I do not wish for an explanation,” interrupted Madeline. Stewart gave a slight start. His manner had a semblance of the old, cool audacity. As he looked down at her it subtly changed. What effrontery, Madeline thought, to face her before her guests with an explanation of his conduct! Suddenly she felt an inward flash of fire that was pain, so strange, so incomprehensible, that her mind whirled. Then anger possessed her, not at Stewart, but at herself, that anything could rouse in her a raw emotion. She stood there, outwardly cold, serene, with level, haughty eyes upon Stewart; but inwardly she was burning with rage and shame. “I’m sure not going to have you think—” He began passionately, but he broke off, and a slow, dull crimson blotted over the healthy red-brown of his neck and cheeks. “What you do or think, Stewart, is no concern of mine.” “Miss—Miss Hammond! You don’t believe—” faltered Stewart. The crimson receded from his face, leaving it pale. His eyes were appealing. They had a kind of timid look that struck Madeline even in her anger. There was something boyish about him then. He took a step forward and reached out with his hand open-palmed in a gesture that was humble, yet held a certain dignity. “But listen. Never mind now what you—you think about me. There’s a good reason—” “I have no wish to hear your reason.” “But you ought to,” he persisted. “Sir!” Stewart underwent another swift change. He started violently. A dark tide shaded his face and a glitter leaped to his eyes. He took two long strides—loomed over her. “I’m not thinking about myself,” he thundered. “Will you listen?” “No,” she replied; and there was freezing hauteur in her voice. With a slight gesture of dismissal, unmistakable in its finality, she turned her back upon him. Then she joined her guests.