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Rh it the first comfort received of things since her arrival. It was carefully groomed. The bay flanks shone like silk; the mane, parted, fell fluffily on each side of the curved neck, the forelock dangling roguishly between the eyes. Beneath the polished saddle a red blanket added a touch of colour, almost of coquetry. The little animal stood there like a protest against the ambient discouragement.

But a white-garbed man was at the door. "Good-morning, Mr. Wilson," she said gaily; "what a nice horse you have there!"

"Good-morning, Miss Terrill," he answered, a gleam of approval in his pale, tired eyes; "but that's not my horse. Mine—well, it's like everything else about here"—and in a heavy gesture he passed his hand over the musty landscape.

She met the owner upstairs.

He was a young man with slender waist and broad shoulders. Leather-gaitered, buttoned to the chin in khaki, a big Colt hanging to his loose belt, he gave Miss Terrill an impression of elastic efficiency very pleasing. But still more pleasing, she thought very secretly, were his eyes, golden-brown, soft and rather grave. He was horribly reticent though. He let Wilson do the talking; leaning against the window-sill, he contented himself with short remarks dropped at long intervals like the sudden toning of a deep bell,