off, though," he continued. "And that's what you get by being refined,"
he concluded, as if Providence had at length spoken in this matter.

"She has not scared off a boy from Virginia, I notice," said I. "He was
there yesterday afternoon again. Ridden all the way over from Sunk Creek.
Didn't seem particularly frightened."

"Oh, well, nothin' alarms him--not even refinement," said Mr. McLean,
with his grin. "And she'll fool your Virginian like she done the balance
of us. You wait. Shucks! If all the girls were that chilly, why, what
would us poor punchers do?"

"You have me cornered," said I, and we sat in a philosophical silence,
Lin on the floor still, and I at the window. There I looked out upon a
scene my eyes never tired of then, nor can my memory now. Spring had
passed over it with its first, lightest steps. The pastured levels
undulated in emerald. Through the many-changing sage, that just this
moment of to-day was lilac, shone greens scarce a week old in the dimples
of the foot-hills; and greens new-born beneath today's sun melted among
them. Around the doubling of the creek in the willow thickets glimmered
skeined veils of yellow and delicate crimson. The stream poured
turbulently away from the snows of the mountains behind us. It went
winding in many folds across the meadows into distance and smallness, and
so vanished round the great red battlement of wall beyond. Upon this were
falling the deep hues of afternoon--violet, rose, and saffron, swimming
and meeting as if some prism had dissolved and flowed over the turrets
and crevices of the sandstone. Far over there I saw a dot move.

"At last!" said I.