Flinging himself down beneath a tree, he drew a deep breath of content. Roving eyes swept the open pasture adjoining, the blue sky with its westering sun ready to sink behind a crotch of the hills. His blinking lids closed sleepily, and opened again while he nestled closer to the ground and pillowed a dusky head on an arm. He had slept only two hours the night before. From the foliage above came a faint rustle followed by what might pass as a discreet little cough. The range rider sat up as though he were hinged at the hips, rose to his feet, and lifted the pinched-in felt hat to a glimpse of blue in the shower of blossoms. “Where did _you_ come from?” he demanded, face lifted to the foliage. “From Keokuk, Iowa,” came the prompt answer. He laughed at this literal response. “I’ll never believe it, ma’am. You’re one of these banshees my mother used to talk about, or else you’re a fairy or one of these here nymphs that dwell in trees.” Through the blossoms he made out a slim figure of grace, vaguely outlined in the mass of efflorescence. Her laughter rippled down to him. “Sorry to disappoint you, sir. But I’m a mere woman.” “I ain’t so sure you won’t open up yore wings an’ fly away,” he protested. “But if you’re givin’ me the straight of it, all I’ve got to say is that I like women. I been waitin’ for one twenty-odd years. Last night I dreamed I was gonna find her before sunset to-day. That’s straight.” She was seated on a branch, chin tilted in a little cupped fist, one heel caught on the bough below to steady her. With an instinct wholly feminine she dexterously arranged the skirt without being able to conceal some inches of slender limb rising from a well-turned ankle. “You’ll have to hasten on your way, then. The sun sets in half an hour,” she told him. His grin was genial, insinuating, an unfriendly critic might have said impudent. “Room for argument, ma’am,” he demurred. “Funny, ain’t it, that of all the millions of apple trees in the world I sat down under this one—an’ while you were in it? Here we are, the man, the tree, an’ the girl, as you might say.” “Are you listing the items in the order of their importance?” she asked. “And anyhow we won’t be here long, since I am leaving now.” “Why are you going?” he wanted to know. “A little matter, a mere trifle. You seem to have forgotten it, but—we haven’t been introduced.” “Now looky here, ma’am. What’s in a name? Some guys says, ‘Meet Mr. Jones,’ an’ you claim you know me. Not a thing to that. It’s a heap more fun to do our own introducin’. Now ain’t it? Honest Injun! I’m anything you want to call me, an’ you’re Miss-Lady-in-the-Apple-Blossoms. An’ now that’s been fixed, I reckon I’ll take the elevator up.” The girl’s eyes sparkled. There was something attractive about this young fellow’s impudence that robbed it of offence. Womanlike, her mind ran to evasions. “You can’t come up. You’d shake down all the blossoms.”