like this newborn enthusiasm on the part of his comrade.




CHAPTER IX.

OVER A PASS.


True to their resolve, the young heads of the High Valley Ranch rode
together to St. Helen's next day,--ostensibly to get their letters; in
reality to call on their late departed guests. They talked amicably as
they went; but unconsciously each was watching the other's mood and
speech. To like the same girl makes young men curiously observant of each
other.

A disappointment was in store for them. They had taken it for granted that
Clover would be as disengaged and as much at their service as she had been
in the valley; and lo! she sat on the piazza with a knot of girls about
her, and a young man in an extremely "fetching" costume of snow-white
duck, with a flower in his button-hole, was bending over her chair, and
talking in a low voice of something which seemed of interest. He looked
provokingly cool and comfortable to the dusty horsemen, and very much at
home. Phil, who lounged against the piazza-rail opposite, dispensed an
enormous and meaning wink at his two friends as they came up the steps.

Clover jumped up from her chair, and gave them a most cordial reception.

"How delightful to see you again so soon!" she said. Then she introduced