"I was wantin' you to see the country from here," he said, as he helped her down. She watched him while he picketed the horses, so that they might not stray. Then they went together to the edge of the thicket, seating themselves in a welcome shade. At their feet the plateau dropped sheer, as though cut with a knife, and a little way out from the base lay a narrow ribbon of water that flowed slowly in its rocky bed, winding around the base of a small hill, spreading over a shallow bottom, and disappearing between the buttes farther down. Everything beneath them was distinguishable, though distant. Knobs rose here; there a flat spread. Mountains frowned in the distance, but so far away that they seemed like papier-mache shapes towering in a sea of blue. Like a map the country seemed as Miss Radford and Ferguson looked down upon it, yet a big map, over which one might wonder; more vast, more nearly perfect, richer in detail than any that could be evolved from the talents of man. Ridges, valleys, gullies, hills, knobs, and draws were all laid out in a vast basin. Miss Radford's gaze swept down into a section of flat near the river. "Why, there are some cattle down there!" she exclaimed. "Sure," he returned; "they're Two Diamond. Way off there behind that ridge is where the wagon is." He pointed to a long range of flat hills that stretched several miles. "The boys that are workin' on the other side of that ridge can't see them cattle like we can. Looks plum re-diculous." "There are no men with those cattle down there," she said, pointing to those below in the flat. "No," he returned quietly; "they're all off on the other side of the ridge." She smiled demurely at him. "Then we won't be interrupted--as we were yesterday," she said. Did she know that this was why he had selected this spot for the end of the ride? He looked quickly at her, but answered slowly. "They couldn't see us," he said. "If we was out in the open we'd be right on the skyline. Then anyone could see us. But we've got this thicket behind us, an' I reckon from down there we'd be pretty near invisible." He turned around, clasping his hands about one knee and looking squarely at her. "I expect you done a heap with your book yesterday--after I went away?" Her cheeks colored a little under his straight gaze. "I didn't stay there long," she equivocated. "But I got some very good ideas, and I am glad that I didn't write much. I should have had to destroy it, because I have decided upon a different beginning. Ben made the trip to Dry Bottom yesterday, and last night he told something that had happened there that has given me some very good material for a beginning." "That's awful interestin'," he observed. "So now you'll be able to start your book with somethin' that really happened?"