near the park limits.

"How uninteresting! We expect a Montana ranchman to have a spectacular
past."

"But not to carry it, I hope, to Washington. On the range I might become
a lawless bandit in the interest of picturesqueness; but here--"

"Here in the world of frock-coated statesmen nothing really interesting
is to be expected."

She walked her horse again. It occurred to her that he might wish an
assurance of silence from her. What she had seen would make a capital bit
of gossip, to say nothing of being material for the newspapers, and her
conscience, as she reflected, grew uneasy at the thought of shielding
him. She knew that her father and mother, and, even more strictly, her
brother, would close their doors on a man whose enemies followed him over
seas and lay in wait for him in a peaceful park; but here she tested him.
A man of breeding would not ask protection of a woman on whom he had no
claim, and it was certainly not for her to establish an understanding
with him in so strange and grave a matter.

"It must be fun having a ranch with cattle on a thousand hills. I always
wished my father would go in for a western place, but he can't travel so
far from home. Our ranch is in Virginia."

"You have a Virginia farm? That is very interesting."

"Yes; at Storm Springs. It's really beautiful down there," she said
simply.