Only Ellen, pale as a flower, her sweet mouth drooping, sat listlessly on the hard beaten earth at the eastern side of the squat house where the spruce trees grew, her hands folded in her lap, a sunbonnet covering the golden ma.s.s of her hair.

At the sound of his horse's hoofs on the stone-flagged yard Kenset saw her start, half rise, fling a startled look at him and then sink back, as if even the advent of a stranger was of slight import in the heavy current of her dull life.

He came in close, drew up, and, with his hat in his hand, sat smiling down at her. To Kenset it was more natural to smile than not to.

The girl, for she was scarce more, looked up at him and he saw at once, even under the disfiguring headgear, that here was a breaking heart laid open for all eyes. The very droop and tremble of the lips were proof.

"Mrs. Courtrey?" he asked gently.

At the words, the smile, the unusual courtesy of the removed hat, Ellen rose from her chair, a tall, slim wisp of a woman, whose blue-veined hands were almost transparent.

"Yes," she said, and waited.

That little waiting, calm, unruffled, made him think sharply of Tharon Last who had waited also for his accounting for himself.

"I am Kenset," he said, "of over in the foothills. Is your husband at home?"

"No," said Ellen, "he's gone in t' Corvan."

There was a world of meaning in the inflection.

"Yes? Now that's too bad. It's taken me a long time to come and I particularly wished to see him. Do you mind if I wait?"

"Why, no," said Ellen a bit reluctantly, "no, sir, I guess not."

Kenset swung off the brown horse and dropped the rein.

"Tired, Captain?" he asked whimsically, rubbing the sweaty mane, while the animal drew a long whistling breath and in turn rubbed the sticky brow band on its forehead on Kenset's arm.

"Looks like he's thirsty," said Ellen presently. "There's a trough round yonder at th' back," and she waved a long hand.

Kenset led Captain around back where a living spring sang and gurgled into a section of tree, deeply hollowed and covered with moss.

When he came back to the shade the woman had brought from some near place a second chair, and he dropped gratefully into it, weary from his long ride.

He laid his hat on the earth beside him and smoothed the sleek, dark hair back from his forehead.

Ellen sat still and watched him with a steady gaze.

She was finding him strange. She looked at his olive drab garments, at the trim leather leggings that encased his lower limbs, at his smooth hands, at his face, and lastly at the dark shield on his breast.

"Law?" she asked succinctly.

"Well," smiled Kenset, "after a fashion."

She moved uneasily in her chair, and the man had a sudden feeling of pity for her.

"Not as you mean, Mrs. Courtrey," he hastened. "I am in the United States Forest Service, if you know what that is."

"No," said Ellen, "I don't know."

"It is simply a service for the conservation of the timber of this country," he explained gently, but he saw that he was not making it clear.

"The saving of the trees," he went on, "the care of the forests."

"Oh," she said, relieved.

"We look after the ranges, protect the woods from fire, and so on."

"Look after th' ranges? How?"

"Regulate grazing, grant permits."

"Permits?"

"Yes." And seeing that at last he had caught her interest, Kenset talked quietly for an hour and told her more than he had vouchsafed any other in Lost Valley about his work.

Gradually, however, he fell to talking to amuse her, for he saw the emptiness behind the big blue eyes, the aching void which there was nothing to fill, neither love nor hope.

As the sun sank lower toward the west Ellen took off the atrocity of calico and starch, and he saw with wonder the amazing beauty of her ropes of hair.

When he ceased talking the silence became profound, for she had nothing to say and speech did not come easy to her anyway. He did not know that at the windows and behind the door-jambs of the deep old house were cl.u.s.tered almost a dozen dusky women and children, drawn from all over the place and listening in utter silence.

Unconsciously he had drifted back to his life in the outside world, encouraged by the absorbing interest of the pale eyes that never left his face. He told Ellen of boat races on the Hudson, of theatres on Broadway, of college pranks and frolics, ranged over half the continent in little story and s.n.a.t.c.h of description.

Neither one noticed how the shadows were lengthening, nor that the sun had dropped in majesty behind the mighty Wall.

It took the sound of running horses, many of them coming up along the slopes, to bring Kenset back to the present with a snap, to make the woman reach swiftly for the bonnet and clap it on her head.

"Mrs. Courtrey," said Kenset hurriedly, "this has been the first real talk I have had with any of my neighbours, and I want to thank you for it."

"Oh," quavered the woman, "I don't know as I'd ought to a-let you stayed! Mebby I'd oughtn't. But--but seems like you bein' so different, an' I not seein' no one, come day in day out, w'y I--I--"

"Sure," he returned quickly, understanding. "You did just right. I wanted to stay."

Then he rose to his feet and there came the thunder of the horses, the noise of men stopping from a run, dismounting.

Ellen rose and he followed her around the corner of the house to the door yard.

As they waited, Courtrey, clad in dark leather chaps, his guns swinging, came toward them. At sight of Kenset he stopped short and an oath rolled from his lips. The kerchief at his neck was turned knot-back and hung like a glob of crimson blood upon his breast.

Under his hat, set at an angle, his dark hair fluffed strangely.

He was a splendid figure of a man, broad shouldered, slim hipped.

Now he looked hard at the stranger and a slow grin lifted his upper lip.

"What's this?" he said, and there was a light suspicion of thickness in his voice, "my wife got com-ny?"