"Hush, - mustn't tell!" she laughed. "Your wish won't come true if you
tell." Then, for no reason at all, she blushed.

Never, in truth, during her twenty-three years of working, and
scrimping, and going without, had life shown to the little art teacher
so fair and generous a side, seemed so extravagantly joyous an affair as
during that magic week. The spending of money, it was easy to see, meant
little or nothing to Blair. But that was the least of his attractions,
for, to the girl herself, mere wealth for its own sake had never
appealed. The charm lay rather in the genial broadness of his view of
things, the strength of reasoning behind the few opinions he put
forward, his reticence, and quiet modesty. In these dwelt the spell that
swept her into an almost delirious enjoyment of his society. For, all
unknown to herself, like many another woman in like condition, she had
needed a change of people. In the cramped life of a private school men
played but little part, and the men who were most worth while, almost no
part at all. Instinctively, in time, she had wearied of little girls and
their lessons. Sorely had she craved the stimulus which only the
companionship of congenial men can give. Of this fact, however, she had
been even less aware.

One crisp morning, seated in a diminutive wicker cart behind a
discontented pony, they searched out Chicken John's cabin on the mesa
behind the golf links.

"Not that it has anything to do with Indians," she apologized, "only I
want you to see him. He's such a character, so nice and untidy and
queer!"

As a result of this expedition they brought away with them what old John