"I didn't intend to tell you," he began, "at least for a while. When I was at the shack last I made up my mind it wouldn't do any good. I said to myself, 'You keep quiet.' But"--he plucked off his hat and sent it whirling to the gun--"I guess you'll have to know now. Dallas, the reason--is you." "Me?" The question was a cry. Lounsbury waited, standing very still before her. Then reaching out again, he touched her hand. "You," he said quietly. Again she retreated. "Please don't go," he begged. "I want to tell you more. And I want you to say you believe me. You _must_ believe me." There was another long silence. Presently he went back and picked up his hat and gun. "I know just where it puts you," he said. "But, just the same, I love you." He was certain now that he had earned her displeasure. When he spoke again, it was as one who accepts a sad finality. "I love you, and I want you. I hoped you might think a little of me some day. For I believe I could make you happy. So it was disappointing to find out that you hadn't thought of me that way; that you were figuring on seeing me take Marylyn. "I never had much idea of marrying. But when I saw you that first time, when you came in through the door, you remember--why, then, I began to think. Couldn't help it." He put on his hat and lifted the gun to his shoulder. "I even wrote mother about you," he said. He was unprepared for the answer she gave him, for it was an answer. Without speaking, she buried her face in the curve of her arm, and, as if seized with an ague, began to tremble. "Dallas," he whispered tenderly. "Oh, my dear girl! I'm so glad! so _glad_! You will--you do?" But he found himself pleading into space. CHAPTER XVIII THE SMOKING MOUNTAIN Medicine Mountain was a volcano. Out of its rocky summit and into the quiet air of the May morning was rising a straight, blue column of smoke. A flag wigwagged from the southern lookout station to herald the phenomenon, and in a moment the post was agog. Keen-sighted scouts hurried to points of vantage, where they studied the mounting plume. Far-reaching glasses were trained amid lively surmise from the galleries fronting the parade. While at barracks, blocking the windows and thronging the porch, the eager troopers gossiped and craned. But in the stockade interest reached its highest pitch. Braves, squaws, and children were strung along the upper end of the enclosure, breathlessly watching the vapour-thread. Each swarthy face had dropped the mask of listlessness; each figure was rooted. Not an eye forsook a straight line to the belching mountain-top. For full three minutes, the distant fire sent up a steady pillar. Then, fort and stockade saw that pillar suddenly wobble, as if caught in the vagaries of a fitful breeze--saw it wobble, thicken, break, and disappear; when the butte again stood, a jagged tooth, against the sky. Above it, innocently white, floated a hand's breadth of cloud.