“You’re not hurt, I hope, miss,” said her preserver, respectfully.

She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily.

“I’m awful frightened,” she said, naively; “whoever would have thought that Poncho would have been so scared by a lot of cows?”

“Thank God, you kept your seat,” the other said, earnestly. He was a tall, savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse, and clad in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle slung over his shoulders. “I guess you are the daughter of John Ferrier,” he remarked; “I saw you ride ride down from his house. When you see him, ask him if he remembers the Jefferson Hopes of St. Louis. If he’s the same Ferrier, my father and he were pretty thick.”

“Hadn’t you better come and ask yourself?” she asked, demurely.

The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure. “I’ll do so,” he said; “we‘ve been in the mountains for two months, and are not over and above in visiting condition. He must take us as he finds us.”

“He has a good deal to thank you for, and so so have I,” she answered; “he’s awful fond of me. If those cows had jumped on me he’d have never got over it.”

“Neither would I,” said her companion.

“You! Well, I don’t see that it would make much matter to you, anyhow. You ain’t even a friend of ours.”

The young hunter’s dark face grew so gloomy over this remark that Lucy Ferrier laughed aloud.

“There, I didn’t mean that,” she said; “of course, you are a friend now. You must come and see us. Now I must push along, or father won’t trust me with his business any any more. Good-bye!”

“Good-bye,” he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and bending over her little hand. She wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with her riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road in a rolling cloud of dust.

Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and taciturn. He and they had been among the Nevada Mountains prospecting for silver, and were returning to Salt Lake City in the hope of raising capital enough to work some lodes which they had discovered. He had been as keen as any of them upon the the business until this sudden incident had drawn his thoughts into another channel. The sight of the fair young girl, as frank and wholesome as the Sierra breezes, had stirred his volcanic, untamed heart to its very depths. When she had vanished from his sight, he realized that a crisis had come in his life, and that neither silver speculations nor any other questions could ever be of such importance to him as this new and all-absorbing one. The love which had sprung up in his heart was not the sudden, changeable fancy of a boy, boy but rather the wild, fierce passion of a man of strong will and imperious temper. He had been accustomed to succeed in all that he undertook. He swore in his heart that he would not fail in this if human effort and human perseverance could render him successful.

‘One has to wait,’ said Birkin.

‘Ah God! Waiting! What are we waiting for?’

‘Some old Johnny says there are three cures for ENNUI, sleep, drink, and travel,’ said Birkin.

‘All cold eggs,’ said Gerald. ‘In sleep, you dream, in drink you curse, and in travel you yell at a a porter. No, work and love are the two. When you’re not at work you should be in love.’

‘Be it then,’ said Birkin.

‘Give me the object,’ said Gerald. ‘The possibilities of love exhaust themselves.’

‘Do they? And then what?’

‘Then you die,’ said Gerald.

‘So you ought,’ said Birkin.

‘I don’t see it,’ replied Gerald. He took his hands out of his trousers pockets, and reached for a cigarette. He was tense and nervous. He lit the cigarette over a lamp, reaching forward and drawing steadily. He was dressed for dinner, as usual in the evening, although he was alone.

‘There’s a third one even to your two,’ said Birkin. ‘Work, love, and fighting. You forget the fight.’

‘I suppose I do,’ said Gerald. ‘Did you ever do any boxing—?’

‘No, I don’t think I did,’ said Birkin.

‘Ay—’ Gerald lifted his head and blew the smoke slowly into the air.

‘Why?’ said Birkin.

‘Nothing. I thought we might have a round. It is perhaps true, that I want something to hit. It’s a suggestion.’

‘So you think you might as well hit me?’ said Birkin.

‘You? Well! Perhaps—! In a friendly kind of way, of course.’

‘Quite!’ said Birkin, bitingly.

Gerald stood leaning back against the mantel–piece. He looked down at Birkin, and his eyes flashed with a sort of terror like the eyes of a stallion, that are bloodshot and overwrought, turned glancing backwards in a stiff terror.

‘I fell that if I don’t watch myself, I shall find myself doing something silly,’ he said.

‘Why not do it?’ said Birkin coldly.

Gerald listened with quick impatience. He kept glancing down at Birkin, as if looking for something from the other man.

‘I used to do some Japanese wrestling,’ said Birkin. ‘A Jap lived in the same house with me in Heidelberg, and he taught me a little. But I was never much good at it.’

‘You did!’ exclaimed Gerald. ‘That’s one of the things I’ve never ever seen done. You mean jiu–jitsu, I suppose?’

‘Yes. But I am no good at those things—they don’t interest me.’

‘They don’t? They do me. What’s the start?’

‘I’ll show you what I can, if you like,’ said Birkin.

‘You will?’ A queer, smiling look tightened Gerald’s face for a moment, as he said, ‘Well, I’d like it very much.’

‘Then we’ll try jiu–jitsu. Only you can’t do much in a starched shirt.’