The Rim of the Desert

titas stables, Lighter, having decided to drive them to North Yakima, was putting the

and my best chance to show 'em is now, down at the fair. I can keep 'em in good shape, maki

w, back, steady, whoa!" The animal stood, frothing a little, his beautiful coat moist, every muscle tense. "See there, now! Ain't he peaceable? Nothing mean under

nd of a customer. He's driving through from the Sound to the races in his machine. A friend of mine wired me. Mebbe you know him. It's one of those Morgansteins of Seattle; the young feller. He saw these bays last year when t

ass. An axle was broken, and he was thrown out of his machine. His leg was injured, and he took t

if he can't come himself, I guess he'll send his man. He told th

re, I want to drive to Wenatchee; w

'n glad to accommodate you. And the sorrels is out with a picnic to Nanum canyon. That leaves the roans. They come in half an hour ago. A couple of traveling salesmen had 'em out all the forenoon, and these drummers

impress an indifferent third to carry the baggage. Besides, judging from all he had seen, the resources of Kittitas did not include a ready-made lady's habit. He returned and stood another silent moment watching the lithe, impatient ba

round. "What is you

tepped back to the heads of his team. "You get in, Harry," h

ed his hold, then hurried forward to the driveway and stood w

d airily, spurning the dust of Kittitas, and blew the ashen powder

ted: "What is

though he made an estimate of how much Tisdale could pay. "Fi

the o

y first-class. I'll make it an even seven hun

sum, just at that time, meant something of a drain on Tisdale's bank account. He knew if he bought the Weatherbee tract and reclaimed it, he must hedge on his personal expenses for a year or two; he had even talked with Banks a

nd began to wal

e trader's calculating gaze.

ing the bays slowly up and down the street. In the moment they waited for him to draw up, the trader looked Tisdale o

rows, "I told you I wanted this tea

there and, if you try to ship these colts aboa

s"-Tisdale paused, smiling at the afterthought-"I decide to

yself: 'He don't look like a feller to run a bluff,' and I says: 'Young Morganstein ain'

oftly in Tisdale's face. "I

Miles Feversham, and your draft was on the Seattle National where the Morgansteins bank. But it's all right; I got my price." He nudged Tisdale

as he approached, and while the solitary man from the freight office caught the first opportunity to store the baggage under the seat, and the second to lift in the basket of samples from Bailey's or

ld them." And the next instant she was up beside him, a

the irrigating canals below Ellensburg watered the plain, and on the right the dunes and bluffs of the unseen Columbia broke the horizon. But the girl was watching Tisdale's management of the horse

of his mouth. "I know all about a team of huskies, and it doesn't make much differen

me; please do. I used to

tand this, and those gloves wo

said, and the exhilaration softened in her face. "They were my ponies given me the birthday I was seventeen. A long time ago-" she sighed and flashed him a side-glance, shaking her head-"but I shall never forget. We lived in San Francisco, and my father and I tried them that morning in Golden Gate park. The roads were simply perfect, and the sea beach at low tide was like a hardwood floor. After that we drove for the week-end to Monterey, then through the redwoods to Santa Cruz and everywhere." She paused reminiscently. "

y; his eyes gathered their far-seeing gaze. He had been suddenly reminded of Weatherbee. It was in those California orchards he had spent his early life. He had known that scent of the blossoming almond; those fields of poppies and lupine had been

play again in Tisdale's face. They were approaching the point where the road met the highway from Ellensburg, and in the irrigated sections that began to divide the unreclaimed land, harve

hoa now! Do you think you are one of those lambs? And there's no chance to go around; it is fenced with bar

. Soon the figures of the advance shepherds loomed through the dust. They were turning the sheep into a harvested field. They rolled in over th

was skilful piloting. A bidarka couldn't

questioned, ruf

n eggshell, yet I would stake a bidarka against a lifeboat in a surf. Do you know?"-he went on after a moment-"I would like to see you in one, racing out with the whitecaps up there in Bering Sea;

she said, and the spar

rose a little in her place and looked over that moving sea of backs. "We must drive through again," she said. "It's going to be stifling but there's no possible way around. No," she protested

mes, in a thicker press, an animal wheeled close to the tires and, stemming the current, sounded a protest. But the young horses, less playful now, divided the great herd and came at last safely out of the smother. The ro

e now, if you wish. It's my wrists; they have been so

taken the reins, "so you ar

I haven't felt as happy

and Do

he most conservative judge could not place her age a day over twenty-five. And she was so buoyant, so vibrant. Hi

sh, and, far off among her shade-trees, the roofs of Ellensburg reflecting the late sun. Above the opposite range that hemmed the valley southward some thunder

ier!" excla

ce I knew. It was like seeing unexpectedly, in an unfamiliar

rned, and met the look with a smile. It was then, for the first time, he discovered unsounded dep

always draw my south curtains first, at Vivian Court, to see whether the dome is clear or promises a wet day. I've learned a mountain, surely as a person, has individuality; every cloud effect is to me a different mood, and sometimes, when I've b

ed quietly: "But I would like to be the fir

us through to the National Park Inn when the new Government road was finished, but we've been waiting for the hea

hard-pressed, as she had confessed? She who was so clearly created for happiness. But to Tisdale her camaraderie with Nature was charming. It was so very rare. A few of the women he had known hitherto had been capable of it, but they had lived rugged lives; the wilderness gave them little else. And of all the men whom he had made his friends through an eventful career, there was only Fos

The thunder-heads, denser now and driving in legions along the opposite

ting over the summit. Rain is streaming from it like a veil of ga

other side of the Cascades," he said, "that weather-cap would mean a storm before m

n slopes. Sometimes the voice of a creek, hurrying down the canyon to join the Yakima, broke the stillness, or a desert wind found its way in and went wailing up the water-course. And sometimes in a rocky place, the hoof-beats of the horses, the noise of the wheels, struck an echo from spur

r adventure. He felt the barrier strengthen to a wall, over which, uncertain, a little afraid, she watched him.

oke softly in his face, "all this appra

ay. "I was wondering if you blamed me. I've been s

ke that eastbound train in Snoqualmie Pass, and that you believed it would

I should have stayed on the freight train as far as Ellensburg,

pointed me. That would have compl

te of me?" s

ood anemone." He paused again, looking off through the trees, and a hint of tenderness touched his mouth. "For instance," he went on, and his voice quickened, "there is your friend, Mrs. Feversham. I never have met her, but I've seen her a good many times, and she always reminds me of one of t

is time his listener ventured to

a bleak mountainside, where, at the close of a miserable day, I was forced to make camp. A little thing stimulates a man sometimes, and the sight of that flower blooming

aid: "That is better than an estimate; it is a tribute. I wish I might hope to live up to it, bu

impressions are the ones that count," he sa

nless y

olets on violets, thousands of them, springing everywhere in the vivid new grass. You can't avoid crushing some, no matter how carefully you pick your steps. There's a ro

ost substance; it became the sheerest tissue, a curtain of gauze. Then the aloofness for which he waited settled o

attention, then in a better stretch, he felt her swift side-glance again reading his f

the amusement shading the corners

e hardest man in the world to

e from the depths of his mellow

Feversham has tried her best to know you; how she sent you invitations repeatedly to din

med her visits to Alaska, I was busy getting my party

e and in Washington eve

here are so many necessary people to meet in connection with my work. Then, too, if the season has been spent in opening co

now it was one of them, or rather one of your closest

how w

y. He had known you to go miles around, on occasion, to avoid a town, just to escape meeting a woman. And he told us-of course I can repeat it since it is

obviously a joke at her own expense as well as Tisdale's.

. "That sounds like Billy Foster. I w

ed affir

isdale's voice rang a little

ds, the Morgansteins; they think a great deal of him. And he happens to play a remarkab

nd, how completely infatuated with the Spanish woman the boy was. His face set austerely. Then suddenly he started; his gras

stioned Mis

organsteins among her friends, and you said you wer

once more to the steep slope, searching out the narrowing stream through the tre

her, perhaps, in California, those years when you were growing up; shared the intimacie

face. Her eyes did not

Tisdale? And who are y

ve known her. What right

d David Weatherbee. And I know what a li