Dick misread the glance and said boldly, “You are not going yet, are you?” “Why not?” Alta’s tone showed surprise; “it’s late enough.” “Not till I get something sweet,” he said smartly, as he grabbed her hands and bent to kiss her. “Dick Davis! How dare you?” she exclaimed in startled, injured tone, as she jerked away and turned to the door. Dick was nonplused, but he caught his astonished breath to say, “Oh, don’t be scared! I won’t hurt you; so long.” Then swinging into his saddle he dug his spurs into his pony and dashed off, while Alta half ran into the house. When she reached her room she stood by the window for a time, tapping her foot temperishly on the floor. “The smarty!” she said, half aloud; “what does he take me for? I don’t know why boys can’t be happy and be gentlemen at the same time. I’m tired of their nonsense.” She began rather impetuously to disrobe. Then she stopped to watch the fleecy clouds glide calmly over the face of the moon. Again she turned to her couch and tucked herself among the comforts, where she lay tossing with her thoughts, and trying to nurse her indignant feelings against Dick into a real hate; but somehow she could not do it. Her heart was troubled. One thing only was clear: she must not tell her uncle a word about it. It would trouble him, too. Alta feared the consequences, if her uncle found out that Dick had mistreated her. No, she would keep such worries to herself. With this thought she fell asleep. This again was a hard thing for Alta to decide. Except for her trouble with Bud she had always opened her heart freely to her foster father, for he was the only friend in whom she could confide. Indeed, he had been both father and mother to her for many years--ever since her own parents had passed away. She had lost her father when she was a babe in arms. Her mother too, a sweet, frail lily, whom Alta could just remember, had passed away some three years later. Then Uncle Tom came into her life, back out of the rugged West, where he had gone after the war--came to lay his brother’s wife tenderly away among the green hills of Ohio, and to take her baby girl to his own rugged heart. How she had softened and molded that old bachelor-soldier heart, how she had played upon it with a thousand childish whims, set it throbbing with anxiety, filled it with joy and love, we can but suggest here. Alta had grown to be part of Colonel Morgan’s very life. For her sake he had tried to settle down again in Ohio, remaining there at his brother’s home for nearly a year. But the call of the craggy West came back in the springtime, and though it half broke his heart to do it, he yielded to his love of the strong life among the mountains, struck out across the plains again with full purpose to make a fortune in California and then return to take care of his “little squirrel” and bring her up in a life that befitted her.