"Where do you want to go?" temporized Florence.

"Anywhere, so it's with you."

"You don't want to stay long?"

"I'll come back whenever you say."

Florence rolled down her sleeves and sighed with a.s.sumed regret. "I ought to stay here and work."

"I'll help you when we come back, if you like."

"Very well." She said it hesitatingly.

"All right. I'll get your horse ready for you."

Scotty watched them peculiarly, Molly doubtfully, as they rode out of the ranch yard; but neither made any comment, and they moved away in silence.

"That's an odd looking pony you've got there," remarked the girl critically, when they had turned into the half-beaten trail which led south. "How does it happen you're on him instead of the other?"

Ben patted the smooth neck before him, and the pony twitched his ears appreciatively.

"Buckskin and I had the misfortune not to meet until lately. We just got acquainted a few days ago."

The girl glanced at her companion quickly and caught the look upon his face.

"I believe you're fonder of your horses and cattle and things than you are of people," she flashed.

The man's hand continued patting the pony's yellow neck.

"More fond than I am of some people, maybe you meant to say."

"Perhaps so," she conceded.

"Yes, I think I am," he admitted. "They're more worthy. They never abuse a kindness, and never come down to the insult of cla.s.s distinctions.

They're the same to-day, to-morrow, a year from now. They'll work themselves to death for you, instead of sacrificing you to their personal gain. Yes, they make better friends than some people."

Florence smiled as she glanced at her companion.

"Is that what you want to tell me? If it is, seeing I've just made my choice and decided to return to civilization and mingle with human beings of whom you have such a poor opinion, I think we may as well go back. Mamma and I have been racking our brains for two days to find a place for the china, and I've just thought of one."

Blair was silent a moment; then he said, "I promised to return whenever you wished, but I've not said what I wanted to say yet."

Florence looked at the speaker with feigned surprise. "Is that so? I'm very curious to hear!"

Ben returned the look deliberately. "You'd like to hear now what I have to say?"

The girl's breath came more quickly, but she persisted in her banter. "I can scarcely wait!"

The line of the youth's big jaw tightened, "I won't keep you in suspense any longer then. First of all, I want to relate a little personal history. I was eight years old, as you know, when I was taken into the Box R ranch. In those eight years, as far as I can remember, not one person except Mr. Rankin ever called at my mother's home."

Again the girl felt a thrill of antic.i.p.ation, but the brown eyes opened archly. "You must have kept a big fierce dog, or--or something."

"No, that was not the reason."

"I can't imagine what it could be, then."

"The explanation is simple. My mother and Tom Blair were never married."

Swiftly the color mounted into Florence's cheeks, and she drew up her horse with a jerk.

"So that is what you brought me out here to tell me!" she blazed.

Ben drew up likewise, and wheeled his pony facing hers.

"I beg your pardon, but I'm not to blame for the way I told you--of myself. You forced it. For once in my life at least, Florence, I'm in dead earnest to-day."

The girl hesitated. Tears of anger, or of something else, came into her eyes. "I'm going home," she announced briefly, and turned back the way they had come.

The man silently wheeled his buckskin and for five minutes, ten minutes, they rode toward home together.

"Florence," said the youth steadily, "I had something more I wished to say to you; will you listen?"

No answer--only the sound of the solid steps of the thoroughbred and the daintier tread of the mustang.

"Florence," he repeated, "I asked you a question."

The girl's face was turned away. "Oh, you are cruel!" she said.

Ben touched his pony, advanced, caught the bridle of the girl's horse, and brought both to a standstill. The girl did not turn her head to look at him, but she did not resist. Deliberately the man dismounted, loosed the rolled blanket he carried back of his saddle, spread it upon the ground, then looked fairly up into her brown eyes.

"Florence," he said, as he held out his hand to a.s.sist her to dismount, "I've something I wish very much to say to you. Won't you listen?"

Florence Baker looked steadily down into the clear blue eyes. Why she did not refuse she could not have told, could never tell. As well as she knew her own name she realized what was coming--what it was the man wished to say to her; but she did not refuse to listen.

"Florence," he said gently, "I'm waiting," and as in a dream she stepped into the proffered hand, felt herself lowered to the ground, followed the young man over to the blanket, and sat down. The sun, now high above them, shone down warmly and approvingly. Scarcely a breath of air was stirring. Not a sound came from over the prairies. As completely as though they were the only two people on the earth, they were alone.

The man stretched himself at his companion's feet, where he could look into her face and catch its every expression.

"Florence Baker," his voice came to her ears like the sound of one speaking afar off, "Florence Baker, I love you. In all that I'm going to say, bear this in mind; don't forget it for a moment. To me you will always be the one woman on earth. Why I haven't told you this before, why I waited until you were pa.s.sing from my life before I said it, I don't know; but now I'm as sure as that I'm looking at you that it is so." The blue eyes never shifted. Presently one big strong hand reached over and enfolded within its grasp another tiny resistless hand, which lay there pa.s.sive.

"You're getting ready to go away, Florence," he went on, "leaving this country where you've spent almost your life, changing it for an uncertainty. Don't do it--not for my sake, but for your own. You know nothing of the city, its pleasures, its rush, its excitement, its ambitions. Granted that you've been there, that we've both been there; but we were only children then and couldn't see beneath the thinnest surface. Yet there must be something beneath the glitter, something you've never thought of and cannot realize; something which makes the life hateful to those who have felt and known it. I don't know what it is, you don't; but it must be there. If it weren't so, why would men like your father, like Mr. Rankin, college men, men of wealth, men who have seen the world, leave the city and come here to stay? They were born in cities, raised in cities. The city was a part of their life; but they left it, and are glad." The man clasped the little hand more tightly, shook it gently. "Florence, are you listening?"

"Yes, I'm listening."

"I repeat then, don't go. You belong here. This life is your life.

Everything that is best for your happiness you will find here. You spoke the other day of your birthright--to love and to be loved--as though this could only be realized in a city. Do you think I don't care for you as much as though my home were in a town?"

Pa.s.sive, motionless, Florence listened, feeling the subtle sympathy which ever existed between her and this boy-man drawing them closer together. His strong magnetism, never before so potent, gripped her almost like a physical force. His personality, original, masterful, convincing, fascinated her. For the time the tacit consent of her position never occurred to her. It seemed but natural and fitting that he should hold her hand. She had no desire to speak or move, merely to listen.