The Highgrader

he bank of the river. Occasionally he pushed through a thick growth of

istically in rustic style. It was a two-story building spread over a good deal of ground space. A wide porch ran round the front

d Kilmeny. "I

covered that he was the p

rmchair had taken the cigar from h

e?" inquir

an you. Who els

his eyes sparkled a light

w?" inquired he of the rocking chair, o

ty man c

an infernal row last night. I couldn't sleep a wink for hours-n

olored mustache decorated his upper lip. Altogether, he might measure five feet five in his boots. The miner looked at him gravely. N

do it again," Dobyans Veri

ir," added the yo

w a slight dark girl with amazingly live eyes and a lift to t

ybody was at the L

explanation: "Lady Farquhar is rather nervous. Of c

ne of the boys had a birthday and we were ve

n't happen again, my good

e dapper little man had been weighed and found w

reservation? I reckon we were some noisy. When the boy

uch charm as it held was too irregular for beauty, but the spirit that broke through interested by

ood last night?" s

town to shoot up, so we just punctured the

me and shot us up,

is eyes admire her lazily. "Young ladies are too seldom in this neck of the woods for

ed Moya Dwight. "Do

barbaric way

eople?" she asked wi

ountry," he exp

that rep

us," he charged. "Now we'll be on o

if it isn't

, though they do f

ey were too good. What's the use of coming to Colo

azard savage of the wilds, interrupted in the interest of propriety.

we think we're a heap more civilized than England. We ain't got any mili

young woman laughed. "They prove we'

e women vote here. What's the matter wi

really?"

d with it. You're going to find us mighty tame. The melodramatic romance of the We

a cowp

he range af

But aren't the

put them out of business. Mostly they're working

Dwight, I wouldn't mind going into Parliament, you know, if it weren't for the bally labor members. I'm rather strong on speaking

m going to be disappointed, I think," Mi

He had tried to put the Westerner out of the picture and found

y told her. "The true romance of the West

s it?" s

e plains and the clean hills-in its big democracy and its

e lean head set so royally on splendid shoulders. His body, spare of flesh and narrow of flank, had the lithe grace of a panther. She had seen before that look of competence, of easy self-reliance. Some of the

g to your West?" asked the young wo

n both voice and face was a vi

heir lives here and are never Westerners. Others a

s excursion into the personal, but

now?" she dem

a guess of mi

m within the house. "Have

smiling eyes that showed a little surprise at sight of the fisherm

the long lines of the soft rounded body! Her movements had a light buoyancy that was charming. And where under heaven c

friend. "I haven't seen

m? Thought I saw it there. I'

odded, her eyes on the stra

had studied carefully the shibboleths of the society with which he wished to be intimate and was probably letter-perfect. None the less, he was a bounder, a rank outsider tolerated only for his money. He might do for the husband of some penniless society girl, but he would never in the world

med Verinder. "Don't see why you

to meet his. She had never before

't y

alked quickly

a fiction that he was in love with Miss Dwight and more

air and flashed a dazzling smile at him.

cago and this was the first sign of interest Mis

at all. She blows hot and cold," h

or women. Don't all the poets credit us with inconstancy?" The leas

all! I say, do you hav

confidence. Dobyans Verinder had never dared to lift his hopes as high as the famous beauty Joyce Seldon. Now for the first time his vanity stir

he drew up a chair and seated himself beside her. Already he was the conquering male in headlong pursuit. Nor was h

that Dobyans Verinder's fortune must be nearer two million pounds than one million.