Tim Flanders, owner of the ranch, was sitting on the porch smoking a postprandial pipe, his chair tilted back and his feet propped against one of the posts. At sight of Miss Trovillion, who was a favourite of his, the legs of the chair and his feet came to the floor simultaneously. “Don’t disturb yourself on my account, Mr. Flanders,” she told him. “I’m not staying.” “Might as well ’light an’ stay for a while,” he said, and dragged a chair forward. Ruth stood for a moment, as though uncertain, before she sat down. “Well, I will, thank you, since you’ve taken so much trouble.” They sat in silence, the girl looking across at the dark blue-black line of mountains which made a jagged outline against a sky not quite so dark. She had not yet lived long enough among the high hills to have got over her wonder at their various aspects under different lights and atmospheres. “It’s been kinda hot to-day for this time o’ year,” her host said at last by way of a conversational advance. “Yes,” she agreed. “But it will be June in a few days. Doesn’t it begin to get warmer here then?” “Not what you’d call real warm, ma’am. We’re a mile high, an’ then some more on top o’ that,” he reminded her. Presently, the subject of the weather having been exhausted, Flanders offered another gambit. “I hope, ma’am, you didn’t break any more cowboy hearts to-day.” She turned eyes of amiable scorn upon him. “Cowboys! Where are they, these cowboys you promised me?” “They been kinda scarce down this way lately, sure enough,” he admitted. “But you mighta seen one to-day if you’d happen’ to have been lookin’ when he passed. His name is Larry Silcott.” Tim’s shrewd eyes rested on her. He indulged in mental gossipy instincts, and it happened that he had seen Silcott come out of the orchard only a few moments before Miss Trovillion had arrived at the house, evidently also from the orchard. Indifferently Miss Trovillion answered, her eyes again on the distant blue-black silhouette. “Is he the one that was claiming so loudly to be the best cowboy in the world?” “Yes, ma’am. Larry’s liable to claim anything. He’s that-a-way.” “Just what do you mean by that?” “He’s got his nerve, Larry has.” He chuckled. “Last night, for instance, by what the boys say.” “Yes?” “There was a dance at the Circle O T. I reckon Larry was pretty scand’lous the way he shined up to another fellow’s girl.” “I suppose he’s one of the kind that thinks he’s irresistible,” she said, an edge of contempt in her voice. “Maybe he has got notions along that line. Probably he’s got some basis for them too. Larry is the sort women like, I judge.” “What sort is that?” she wanted to know. “They like a fellow who is gay an’ puts up a good bluff, one who has lots of little laughin’ secrets to whisper to ’em behind his hand when other folks are in the room.” “You seem to know all about it, Mr. Flanders. Why don’t you write a book about us?”