The yellow blossoms made a garland about her hat.

"Do you like them thus?" she asked, delighted.

"Immensely."

"Then they shall stay there. And Imo will die of envy when I tell her they're yours."

"n.o.body ever died of that."

"Perhaps not. But she will suffer extremely. You didn't even put bean plants in her hat."

Lee was highly amused at this raillery. He began to walk forward by her side as she moved away from the spot, now addressing her, now listening to her words, in a desire to stretch the last minute to the uttermost. Her head came just even with his shoulder, so that she had to raise her face to gaze at him when he spoke, and in the act there was something simple, winning, blithe, as likewise in the swing of her lissom figure beside his own there was an inimitable jauntiness and cheer. He divined her eager, ardent spirit; and the closeness of her, this comradeship, set his blood humming.

Abruptly he halted, laying a finger on her arm.

"I mustn't go the whole way, you know," he said, "though I should like to. For, by heavens, you've opened my eyes! Didn't realize how satiated with myself I'd become. But I'll make up for that now, Miss Ruth, and it won't be very long before you and your friend will be planning how to rid yourselves of me."

"Just try us and see," she exclaimed.

"Well, I shall. Till to-morrow, then."

"Till to-morrow, yes." She moved forward some paces and wheeled about, pointing her forefinger at his head and working her thumb.

"Beware--and don't forget!" Then after another advance and face about she concluded by blowing him a kiss off the palm of her hand, with which performance she did actually start for home, weaving her way through the sagebrush and going farther and farther off.

"What a pretty little witch she is!" thought Lee; and he, too, made his way from the spot.

Dave's hot, hara.s.sed face greeted him at the door.

"Where is she? Didn't she come?" he cried, peering about everywhere.

"Well, thank goodness for that! But if that isn't the way with a girl--and after I'd swept up and made the beds and sc.r.a.ped all the skillets, too!"

CHAPTER IX

That Sunday afternoon at Sarita Creek! The dinner, so savoury, so delectable; the two girls, arrayed in cool white lawn, rosy-cheeked, beaming; the gay talk and banter and laughter; the blissful hours together on the gra.s.s beneath the trees, with the wide mesa diffusing an immense languor, with the mountains bestowing a vast peace, with the brook at their feet murmuring an accompaniment to their words--hours to treasure, hours of pure gold: Little wonder that Dave, lying full length and gazing upward through the boughs at the blue vault, allowed his eyelids to sink and at last to close. Little wonder the girls' faces grew dreamy and their voices gentle. And none, none at all, that Lee succ.u.mbed to the spell.

He was still under the enchantment when toward sunset Ruth suggested they go up the canon. But Imogene, arousing herself, declared that she had letters to write; and Dave, still fast asleep, was already on roamings of his own. Ruth and Lee therefore went alone up the path through the trees and underbrush, until they emerged in the cool, dusky gorge formed by the contracting of the rocky walls. The brook rippled by over stones and moss. A few insects hovered over the stream with their tiny bodies shining like bronze. From somewhere came a sweet, honeyed smell of flowers.

"Imo writes letters regularly," Ruth explained concerning her friend, "to an instructor in a university in the East. I don't think they're exactly affianced, but expect to be. Waiting, apparently. Waiting until he's a professor--and until her health is better, too, I imagine. An agreement to let things rest as they are for the present, one might say. Imogene talks very little about it, and of course I ask no questions."

She sat down on a fallen tree, patting its trunk to signify a place for him at her side. Pointing at crevises in the canon wall, she began to tell him the names she and Imogene had given them--Bandit's Stair, Devil's Crack, Bear's Hole, and to enumerate those a.s.signed the jutting points and k.n.o.bs along the rim that by a stretch of the imagination bore a resemblance to animals or human heads.

As she talked, with her gray eyes at times turning to his to learn if he was interested, he felt anew the charm of her youthfulness, of her vivid personality. It dwelt in her small, firm hands pointing now here, now there, in her slender, rounded form faced toward him, in her red lips, her soft smooth cheek, her brow, in her glances and her animated words. He noted again, as a quality altogether delicious, the air of unconscious friendliness that he had perceived at their very first encounter. It quite offset the slight touch of obstinacy in her chin--but, in truth, did the latter require an offset? He had earlier thought that with such a trait one could not foretell where its possessor might go, or what do, or what exact, under stress of feeling. He smiled at that now. How ridiculous the notion! Why shouldn't a girl have a bit of determination in her make-up? Well, she should. It gave force to her character. It made her more individual, more attractive. It coloured a nature so essentially feminine as Ruth Gardner's with elusive and delightful possibilities.

"See, up yonder at the top!" she exclaimed. "That piece of rock like a man's head and shoulders I named Lee Bryant, after you."

"Do I look as block-headed as that?"

"No. It was not because of any resemblance, but because you kept your back so long toward us. Now, however, since you've repented and ceased to neglect us, I shall call it after someone else. Perhaps after the stage-driver who takes our letters down to Kennard; he sits hunched up like that. I'll seek a much nicer rock to represent you."

"That's wholly unnecessary, for I intend to keep before your eyes in person."

"Which will be the nicest of all," said she, smiling.

He continued to gaze at her, to listen to her voice, with a pleasure he made no effort to conceal. And she, on her part, seemed to surrender herself to the enjoyment of the moment; her eyes remaining longer on his, her tones softening to a slow, tender utterance almost carrying a caress, her face keeping its languorous smile; as if the honey-sweet fragrance from the unseen flowers had invaded her spirit.

A pause came in their talk. They sat unmoving, without stir of hand or head, quiescent. Then Lee all at once experienced a feeling of profound compa.s.sion for Ruth as he regarded her, a poignant stab in his breast like pain. Sitting there without movement, with her hands idle upon her lap, with her face a little lifted and her eyes wistfully bent on the great wall opposite, she seemed so young and small to be dwelling at such a place, so helpless, so solitary, that her presence appeared a cruel irony of fate. Her homesteading was a desperate clutch at security; and her situation was utterly different from that of her friend, Imogene Martin, who viewed the matter as in the nature of a health-seeking holiday, and who was sustained by the knowledge that she had wealthy relations at Kennard to whom she could return. Far different, indeed. At the thought of the homesickness that at times Ruth must know, of the lonesomeness of mountain and mesa from which she must suffer, of the deprivations, the hard bareness of the life, the moments of despair, he had a sensation of the bitter unfairness of things and a desire to s.n.a.t.c.h her safe away from the harsh pa.s.s in which she stood. It would be only right, it would be only just.

When presently she looked about and found his eyes rapt on her face, a quick blush spread over her throat and cheeks.

"I think--think we should go home now," she said, with a catch of her breath.

"Yes," said he, rising.

He leaped the log on which they had been sitting and then put up a hand to help her mount. Holding his fingers she raised herself upon the tree trunk. But suddenly the bark gave way; she slipped, lost her balance, and pitched forward. Lee caught her in his arms.

For an instant she rested there in his clasp, her surprised eyes gazing into his. A quiver pa.s.sed over her form. Her lips were parted, but she had ceased to breathe. Likewise in Bryant's breast the breath had stopped. A fierce pa.s.sion swept him to hold her always thus, warm and close and secure. His arms trembled at the thought; at which her eyelashes began to flutter and her breath to come once more, as hurried as the beat of her heart. And then, yielding utterly to the swirl of mad impulse, he kissed her--once, twice, and twice again.

Afterward he set her on her feet.

"I guess that ends our friendship," he said, with a wavering smile.

"Lost my head altogether. Couldn't help it. I looked at you and--and it just happened. All my will and sense vanished in an instant.

Bewitched!"

The colour was still in her face, and her air was uncertain, disturbed. But at his words, so palpably sincere and self condemnatory, she began to smile.

"Perhaps--if we just forget----"

The smouldering fire in his eyes flared suddenly.

"Forget? I'll never forget that minute, those kisses," he exclaimed.

"Hanged if I want to, or will!"

"If, then, we don't repeat them, and are more circ.u.mspect, why, I'll overlook it," she said, a little confusedly. "I know you meant no discourtesy." He gave a savage shake of his head. "And Imogene and I both prize your friendship."

"Thank you, Ruth. You take an awful load off my heart."

She glanced up at him, now once more composed. Her eyes gleamed with a veiled impishness.

"No girl ever died from being kissed. But what a splendid lover you would make!" Away she darted a few steps, to whirl and point and waggle a finger at the dumfounded youth. "Are you coming? Because I don't consider this a wise place to be with a flighty, irresponsible man, first name Lee. Besides, it's beginning to grow dark in here."

Bryant joined her. The glow was still in his eyes, but in all other respects he was his usual self, calm, collected. Together they went down the cool, dim canon, with its honey scent of flowers drifting with them; and though they talked lightly of things of no importance, there was a little smile on the lips of each and sometimes their eyes met, as if sharing a new, sweet intimacy.

Thereafter, frequent as were Lee's calls at Sarita Creek of evenings, he seldom had Ruth to himself and on more than one occasion had to share her company with Charlie Menocal, much to his impatience. When Imogene sometimes succeeded in detaining the fellow at her side, Bryant silently gave her unutterable thanks. And Ruth seemed day by day more receptive to his pa.s.sion.

"I think of only two things, my ca.n.a.l and you," he declared to her one night.