standing a few paces off by the horses. In her gaze, too, there was a
faint curiosity, as if she wondered who the persons might be, and what
they were doing here, and of what they had been conversing when
interrupted. An exceedingly lovely girl she was, as the engineer had
instantly perceived; her features molded in soft lines and curves that
enchanted, a tint like that of peach petals in her cheeks, with warm,
sensitive lips and brown, shining eyes--a radiant, intelligent face.
Against the background of the place, the creek bed of sand and stones
and the banks fringed with dusty sagebrush, she glowed with the
freshness of a desert rose.

The driver of the car took a step toward Bryant, extending the bucket.

"Dip me some water out of that hole while I look at my tires, will
you?" he said.

At the words, which were rather more of a command than a request, the
engineer regarded him fixedly while the blood stirred beneath his tan,
but finally took the bucket. The other turned back to the car, where
he made a pretense of inspecting a front wheel and then, with a foot
on the running-board and elbow resting on knee, twisting indolently a
point of his small moustache, he began to converse with his companion
of the blue veil.

Bryant filled the radiator. Two trips to the pool were necessary to
obtain enough water for that purpose, but he finished the job with the
same thoroughness that he went through with any business once
undertaken, whether pleasant or otherwise. As he poured the contents
of the bucket into the radiator's spout, he took stock of the
automobile party. His face hardened with a slight contempt when he