walking; yet, as well, it could have been the guarded advance of
one who took no chances with men.

"Hello, stranger!" called Tull. No welcome was in this greeting
only a gruff curiosity.

The rider responded with a curt nod. The wide brim of a black
sombrero cast a dark shade over his face. For a moment he closely
regarded Tull and his comrades, and then, halting in his slow
walk, he seemed to relax.

"Evenin', ma'am," he said to Jane, and removed his sombrero with
quaint grace.

Jane, greeting him, looked up into a face that she trusted
instinctively and which riveted her attention. It had all the
characteristics of the range rider's--the leanness, the red burn
of the sun, and the set changelessness that came from years of
silence and solitude. But it was not these which held her, rather
the intensity of his gaze, a strained weariness, a piercing
wistfulness of keen, gray sight, as if the man was forever
looking for that which he never found. Jane's subtle woman's
intuition, even in that brief instant, felt a sadness, a
hungering, a secret.

"Jane Withersteen, ma'am?" he inquired.

"Yes," she replied.

"The water here is yours?"