I sailed along on what seemed a strange ride. Grazing horses pranced and
whistled as I went by; jack-rabbits bounded away to hide in the longer
clumps of grass; a prowling wolf trotted from his covert near a herd of
cattle.

Far to the west rose the low, dark lines of bleak mountains. They were
always mysterious to me, as if holding a secret I needed to know.

It was a strange ride because in the back of my head worked a haunting
consciousness of the deadly nature of my business there on the frontier,
a business in such contrast with this dreaming and dallying, this
longing for what surely was futile.

Any moment I might be stripped of my disguise. Any moment I might have
to be the Ranger.

Sally kept the lead across the wide plain, and mounted to the top of a
ridge, where tired out, and satisfied with her victory, she awaited me.
I was in no hurry to reach the summit of the long, slow-sloping ridge,
and I let my horse walk.

Just how would Sally Langdon meet me now, after my regretted exhibition
before her cousin? There was no use to conjecture, but I was not
hopeful.

When I got there to find her in her sweetest mood, with some little
difference never before noted--a touch of shyness--I concealed my
surprise.

"Russ, I gave you a run that time," she said. "Ten miles and you never