"Better get you a piece of twine to do it with, Win," he grinned; "you sure are a long ways from home when it comes to braidin' a smoke. Saw a cow-hand do it once with one hand. In a show, it was in Cheyenne, an' he sure was some cowboy--in the show. Come out onto the flats one day where the boys was breakin' a bunch of Big O Little O horses--'after local colour,' he said." The Texan paused and grinned broadly. "Got it too. He clum up into the middle of a wall-eyed buckskin an' the doc picked local colour out of his face for two hours where he'd slid along on it--but he could roll a cigarette with one hand. There, you got one at last, didn't you? Kind of humped up in the middle like a snake that's swallowed a frog, but she draws all right, an' maybe it'll last longer than a regular one." He turned to Alice who had watched the operation with interest. "If you-all don't mind a little rough climbin', I reckon, you'd count the view from the rim-rocks yonder worth seein'." "Oh, I'd love it!" cried the girl, as she scrambled to her feet. "Come on, Win," called the Texan, "I'll show you where God dumped the tailin's when He finished buildin' the world." Together the three scaled the steep rock-wall. Alice, scorning assistance, was the first to reach the top, and once more the splendour of the magnificent waste held her speechless. For some moments they gazed in silence. Before them, bathed in a pale amethyst haze that thickened to purple at the far-off edge of the world, lay the bad lands resplendent under the hot glare of the sun in vivid red and black and pink colouring of the lava rock. Everywhere the eye met the flash and shimmer of mica fragments that sparkled like the facets of a million diamonds, while to the northward the Bear Paws reared cool and green, with the grass of the higher levels reaching almost to the timber line. "Isn't it wonderful?" breathed the girl. "Why do people stay cooped up in the cities, when out here there is--this?" Endicott's eyes met hers, and in their depths she perceived a newly awakened fire. She was conscious of a strange glow at her heart--a mighty gladness welled up within her, permeating her whole being. "He has awakened," her brain repeated over and over again, "he has----" The voice of the Texan fell upon her ears softly as from a distance, and she turned her eyes to the boyish faced cow-puncher who viewed life lightly and who, she had learned, was the thorough master of his wilderness, and very much a man.