freights? Maybeso we'll meet up with the thieves at that. Yo no se (I
don't know)."

When Joyce was in the room where Dave lay on the lounge, the young man
never looked at her, but he saw nobody else. Brought up in a saddle on
the range, he had never before met a girl like her. It was not only that
she was beautiful and fragrant as apple-blossoms, a mystery of maidenhood
whose presence awed his simple soul. It was not only that she seemed so
delicately precious, a princess of the blood royal set apart by reason of
her buoyant grace, the soft rustle of her skirts, the fine texture of the
satiny skin. What took him by the throat was her goodness. She was
enshrined in his heart as a young saint. He would have thought it
sacrilege to think of her as a wide-awake young woman subject to all the
vanities of her sex. And he could have cited evidence. The sweetness of
her affection for rough Em Crawford, the dear, maternal tenderness with
which she ruled her three-year-old brother Keith, motherless since the
week of his birth, the kindness of the luminous brown eyes to the uncouth
stranger thrown upon her hospitality: Dave treasured them all as signs of
angelic grace, and they played upon his heartstrings disturbingly.

Joyce brought Keith in to say good-bye to Dave and his friend before
they left. The little fellow ran across the room to his new pal, who
had busied himself weaving horsehair playthings for the youngster.

"You turn back and make me a bwidle, Dave," he cried.

"I'll sure come or else send you one," the cowpuncher promised, rising to
meet Joyce.

She carried her slender figure across the room with perfect ease and