“Soon after that, her lord came home
     Inquiring for his lady-O,
   When some of the servants made this reply,
     She’s a-gone with the Gypsy Davy-O.

  “Then saddle me my milk-white steed,
     For the black is not so speedy-O,
   And I’ll ride all night and I’ll ride all day
     Till I overtake my lady-O.”

She stood transfixed, something within her responding to the hidden singer, as she had once heard a closed piano sound to a voice that sang near it.  Soon she could get broken glimpses of him as he wound down the trail, now turning around the end of a fallen tree, then passing behind a giant spruce, now leaning far back while the horse felt a way cautiously down some sharp little declivity.  The impression was confused,—­a glint of red, of blue, of the brown of the horse, a figure swaying loosely to the horse’s movements, and then he was out of sight again around the big rock that had once fallen from high up on the side of the canon; but now, when he came from behind that, he would be squarely in front of her.  This recalled and alarmed her.  She began to pick a way over the boulders and across the trail that lay between her and the edge of the pines, hearing another verse of the song, almost at her ear:—­

  “He rode all night and he rode all day,
   Till he came to the far deep water-O,
   Then he stopped and a tear came a-trickling down his cheek,
   For there he saw his lady-O.”

Before she could reach a shelter in the pines, while she was poised for the last step that would take her out of the trail, he was out from behind the rock, before her, almost upon her, reining his horse back upon its haunches,—­then in another instant lifting off his broad-brimmed hat to her in a gracious sweep.  It was the first time she had seen this simple office performed outside of the theatre.

She looked up at him, embarrassed, and stepped back across the narrow trail, her head down again, so that he was free to pass.  But instead of passing, she became aware that he had dismounted.

When she looked up, he was busily engaged in adjusting something about his saddle, with an expression of deepest concern in his blue eyes.  His hat was on the ground and his yellow hair glistened where the band had pressed it about his head.

“It’s that latigo strap,” he remarked, in a tone of some annoyance.  “I’ve had to fix it every five miles since I left Kanab!” Then looking up at her with a friendly smile:  “Dandy most stepped on you, I reckon.”

The amazement of it was that, after her first flurry at the sound of his voice and his half-seen movements up the trail, it should now seem all so commonplace.

“Oh, no, I was well out of his way.”

She started again to cross the trail, stepping quickly, with her eyes down, but again his voice came, less deliberate this time, and with words in something less than intelligible sequence.