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 the summer sea. And Amy Lovejoy's nature would always have the finer, more individual quality of the high, pure altitude in which she had been reared. Possibly Stephen Burns had yet something to learn about that agreeable climate with which he was so ready to compare his love. The weather had been perfect since he came to Colorado. How could he suspect the meaning of a tiny wisp of vapor too slight to cast a visible shadow?

And Amy chatted gaily on with Jack Hersey, as they cantered southward, while Stephen Burns, riding beside them, told himself with needless reiteration, that he was well content. One reason for content he certainly had at that moment, for he was a good horseman, as an accomplished gentleman is bound to be, and he was never quite insensible to the exhilaration of that delicious, rhythmic motion.

They had passed through a gate which signified that the rolling acres of prairie on either hand, the winding road that lost itself in the distance, the pine-clad slope to the right, were all but a part of a great ranch. Herds of cattle were doubtless pastured within that enclosure, though nowhere visible to the holiday party riding and driving over their