“Thank you ; but you had better save your compliments till I make good,” she told him, with the most piquant air of gayety in the world. They started on horseback, following a mountain trail that zigzagged across the foothills toward the Crags. He had unearthed somewhere a boy’s saddle that suited her very well, and the pony she rode was one of the easiest she had ever mounted. At the end of an hour’s ride they left the horses and began the ascent on foot. It was a stiff climb, growing steeper as they ascended, but Helen Messiter had not tramped over golf links for nothing. She might grow leg weary,’ but she would not cry “Enough!” And he, on his part, showed the tactful consideration for the resources of her strength he had already taught her to expect from that other day’s experience on the plains. It was a very rare hand of assistance that he offered her, but often he stopped to admire the beautiful view that stretched for many miles below them, in order that she might get a minute’s breathing space. Once he pointed out, far away on the horizon, a bright gleam that caught the sunlight like a heliograph. “That’s the big rock slide back of the Lazy, D,” he explained. She drew a long breath, and flashed a stealthy look at him. “It’s a long way from here, isn’t it?” “I didn’t find it so far last time I took the trip—not the last half of the journey, anyhow,” he answered. “You’re very complimentary. I was only wondering whether I could find it if I should manage to escape.” He stroked his black mustache and smiled gallantly at her. “I reckon I won’t let so pretty a prisoner escape.” “Do you expect me to burden your hospitality forever and a day? Wouldn’t that be a little too much of Mariana of the Robbers’ Roost?” she asked, lightly. “I’m willing to risk it.” He looked with half-shut smoldering eyes at her slender exquisiteness, so instinct with the vital charm of sex. There was veiled passion in his eyes, but there was in them, too, a desire to stand well with her. He meant to win her, but if possible he would win with her own reluctant consent. She must bring him with hesitant feet a heart surrendered in spite of her pride and flinty puritanism. The vanity of the man craved a victory that should be of the spirit as well as of the flesh. Deftly she guided the conversation back to less dangerous channels. In this the increasing difficulty of the climb assisted her, for after they reached the last ascent sustained talk became impossible. “See that trough above us near the summit?. Y’u’ll have to hang on by your eyelashes, pardner.” He always burlesqued the word of comradeship a little to soften its familiarity. “Dear me! Is it that bad?” “It is so bad that at the top y’u have to jump for a grip and draw yourself up by your arms.” “I’ll never be able to do it.” “I’m here to help.” “But if one should miss?” He shrugged. “Ah! That’s a theological question. If the sky pilots guess right, for y’u heaven and for me hell.”