And then he dismounted and helped Masten down, leading his pony forward toward the shack, but turning when he reached the porch, to look back at Masten and Hagar, standing together in the shade of the trees, the girl's head resting on the man's shoulder. Catherson pulled the saddle and bridle from the pony, turned him into the corral, and then went into the house. A little later he came out again, smoking a pipe. Masten and Hagar were sitting close together on a fallen tree near where he had left them. Catherson smiled mildly at them and peacefully pulled at his pipe. CHAPTER XXVI A DREAM COMES TRUE On the edge of the mesa, from which, on the day of her adventure with the injured ankle, Ruth had viewed the beautiful virgin wilderness that stretched far on the opposite side of the river, she was riding, the afternoon of a day a week later, with Randerson. She had expressed a wish to come here, and Randerson had agreed joyfully. Seated on a rock in the shade of some trees that formed the edge of that timber grove in which he had tied Ruth's pony on a night that held many memories for both, they had watched, for a long time, in silence, the vast country before them. Something of the solemn calmness of the scene was reflected in Ruth's eyes. But there was a different expression in Randerson's eyes. It was as though he possessed a secret which, he felt, she ought to know, but was deliberately delaying the telling of it. But at last he decided, though he began obliquely: "I reckon there's a set plan for the way things turn out--for folks," he said, gravely. "Things turn out to show it. Everything is fixed." He smiled as she looked at him. "Take me," he went on. "I saw your picture. If I'd only seen it once, mebbe I wouldn't have fell in love with it. But--" "Why, Rex!" she reproved with an injured air, "how can you say that? Why, I believe I loved you from the minute I saw you!" "You didn't have anything on me there!" he told her. "For I was a gone coon the first time I set eyes on _you!_ But is it the same with pictures? A picture, now, has to be studied; it ain't like the real article," he apologized. "Anyway, if I hadn't kept lookin' at your picture, mebbe things would have been different. But I got it, an' I looked at it a lot. That shows that it was all fixed for you an' me." She looked mirthfully at him. "Was it all fixed for you to take the picture from Vickers, by force--as you told me you did?" she demanded. He grinned brazenly. "I reckon that was part of the plan," he contended. "Anyway, I got it. Vickers wouldn't speak to me for a month, but I reckon I didn't lose any sleep over that. What sleep I lost was lost lookin' at the picture." The confession did not embarrass him, for he continued quietly: