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 hat off to wind up her hair, which seemed to be coming down, although not a strand of it was to be seen before she revealed it by this sudden uncovering.

There was plenty of it, braided and wound in the German way about the head, light and fine, harmonizing with her fair skin and blue eyes. Her femininity was enhanced greatly by the simple removal of her hat, her comeliness established beyond a doubt. She stood somewhat above the height of romance, her newly-wound top-knot but a few inches short of Rawlins' own crown as he trudged beside her taking inventory of her sheepland charms.

She did not have the appearance of one who lived in a sheep wagon, or followed the flocks over the hills, as Clemmons had told him many sheep families did in that neighborhood of small flockmasters. While she slammed around somewhat carelessly with her words, there was an edging of a better understanding in her manner. She had not spent all her time on the sequestered ranch at the mountain creekside, Rawlins was very sure.

Sequestered ranch was about the name for it, he thought, as they wormed along the trail beside the crooked stream, its bright clear water making a rumpus among the stones, the red-barked willows along its course showing a little dressing of green leaves and pendant blooms.

They burst upon the ranch at once, with no preliminary hint of its nearness, not even in the broadening of the trail as much as the breadth of a hand. A comfortable, snug place it was, a low log house, long and commodious, with a jutting wing, a veranda between.