CHAPTER XVI

THE CROSS TRAILS

Like Joel Mazarine on his journey from Askatoon, Orlando, on his journey
from Nolan Doyle's ranch, was absorbed, but his reflections were as
different from those of the Master of Tralee as sunrise is from midnight;
indeed, so bright was the light within Orlando's spirit that the very
prairie around him seemed aflame. The moment with Louise in the garden
lighted by the dim moon, the passing instant of perfect understanding,
the touch of her hair upon his lips, her supple form yielding to his as
he clasped her in his arms, had dropped like a curtain between him and
the fateful episode in the main street of Askatoon.

That wonderful elation of youth on its first excursion into perfumed
meads of Love possessed him. He had never had flutterings of the heart
for any woman until his eyes met the eyes of Louise at their first
meeting, and a new world had been opened up to him. He had been as naive
and native a human being with all his apparent foppishness, as had ever
moved among men. What seemed his vanity had nothing to do with thoughts
of womankind. It had been a decorative sense come honestly from
picturesque forebears, and indeed from his own mother.

In truth, until the day he had met Louise, or rather until the day of the
broncho-busting, and the fateful night on the prairie, he had never grown
up. He was wise with the wisdom of a child--sheer instinct, rightness
of mind, real decision of character. His giggling laugh had been the