Brill Healy Airs His Sentiments

To Phyllis, riding from school near the close of a hot Friday afternoon along the old Fort Lincoln Trail, came the voice of Brill Healy from the ridge above. She waved to him the broad-brimmed hat she was carrying in her hand, and he guided his pony deftly down the edge of the steep slope.

"Been looking for some strays down at Three Pines," he explained. "Awful glad I met you."

"Where were you going now?" she asked.

"Home, I reckon; but I'll ride with you to Seven Mile if you don't mind."

She looked at her watch. "It's just five-thirty. We'll be in time for supper, and you can ride home afterward."

"I guess you know that will suit me, Phyllis," he answered, with a meaning look from his dark eyes.

"Supper suits most healthy men so far as I've noticed," she said carelessly, her glance sweeping keenly over him before it passed to the purple shadowings that already edged the mouth of a distant cañon.

"I'll bet it does when they can sit opposite Phyl Sanderson to eat it."

She frowned a little, the while he took her in out of half-shut, smoldering eyes, as one does a picture in a gallery. In truth, one might have ridden far to find a living picture more vital and more suggestive of the land that had cradled and reared her.

His gaze annoyed her, without her quite knowing why. "I wish you wouldn't look at me all the time," she told him with the boyish directness that still occasionally lent a tang to her speech.