One day a queer thing happened. He had never heard of psychic
phenomena or telepathy, but he opened his eyes from a day-dream of her
to see Jessie McRae looking down at him.

She was on an Indian cayuse, round-bellied and rough. Very erect she
sat, and on her face was the exact expression of scornful hatred he
had seen in his vision of her.

He jumped to his feet. "You--here!"

A hot color flooded her face with anger to the roots of the hair.
Without a word, without another glance at him, she laid the bridle
rein to the pony's neck and swung away.

Unprotesting, he let her go. The situation had jumped at him too
unexpectedly for him to know how to meet it. He stood, motionless, the
red light in his eyes burning like distant camp-fires in the night.
For the first time in his life he had been given the cut direct by a
woman.

Yet she wasn't a woman after all. She was a maid, with that passionate
sense of tragedy which comes only to the very young.

It was in his mind to slap a saddle on his bronco and ride after her.
But why? Could he by sheer dominance of will change her opinion of
him? She had grounded it on good and sufficient reasons. He was
associated in her mind with the greatest humiliation of her life, with
the stinging lash that had cut into her young pride and her buoyant
courage as cruelly as it had into her smooth, satiny flesh. Was it
likely she would listen to any regrets, any explanations? Her hatred