with his hat tilted over the eye most swollen. Without a doubt he had seen
her waving and smiling, and so he must have observed the instant cooling of
her manner. He nodded to Manley and lifted his hat while he looked at her
full; and Val, in the arrogant pride of virtuous young womanhood, let her
golden-brown eyes dwell impersonally upon his face; let her white, round
chin dip half an inch downward, and then looked past him as if he were a
post by the roadside. Afterwards she smiled maliciously when she saw, with
a swift, sidelong glance, how he scowled and spurred unnecessarily his gray
gelding.




CHAPTER V


COLD SPRING RANCH

For almost three years the letters from Manley had been headed "Cold
Spring Ranch." For quite as long Val had possessed a mental picture of the
place--a picture of a gurgly little brook with rocks and watercress and
distracting little pools the size of a bathtub, and with a great, frowning
boulder--a cliff, almost--at the head. The brook bubbled out and formed
a basin in the shadow of the rock. Around it grew trees, unnamed in the
picture, it is true, but trees, nevertheless. Below the spring stood a
picturesque little cottage. A shack, Manley had written, was but a synonym
for a small cottage, and Val had many small cottages in mind, from which
she sketched one into her picture. The sun shone on it, and the western
breezes flapped white curtains in the windows, and there was a porch where
she would swing her hammock and gaze out over the great, beautiful country,