God's Country--And the Woman

trade that name for just now: One is pie, another is doughnuts, and the third--"

She brushed back her hair, and the fear went from her eyes as she looked at him.

"And the third?" she asked.

"Is the answer to a question," he finished. "How do YOU happen to be here, six hundred miles from anywhere?"

She stepped out from the rock. And now he saw that she was almost as tall as himself, and that she was as slim as a reed and as beautifully poised as the wild narcissus that sways like music to every call of the wind. She had tucked up her sleeves, baring her round white arms close to the shoulders, and as she looked steadily at him before answering his question she flung back the shining masses of her hair and began to braid it. Her fear for him was entirely gone. She was calm. And there was something in the manner of her quiet and soul-deep study of him that held back other words which he might have spoken.

In those few moments she had taken her place in his life. She stood befo