For an instant he stood aghast at this discovery; then he laughed.

“Well if you want a race, you’ll get it!”

He was off again along the rough bed of the stream.  He shouted no more, but slowly increased the gain he had made upon her.  Instead of losing time by climbing up over the bank, he splashed through the water at two places where the little stream was wide and shallow.  Then at last he saw that he was closing in upon her.  Soon he was near enough to see that she also knew it.

He began at that moment an extended course of marvelling at the ways of woman.  For now she had reached the edge of the little open park, and was placidly seating herself on a fallen tree in the grove of quaking aspens.  He could not understand this change of manner.  And when he reached the opening she again astounded him by greeting him with every manifestation of surprise, from the first nervous start to the pushing up of her dark brows.

“Why,” she began, “how did you ever think of coming here?”

But he had twice hurried fruitlessly this hot morning and he was not again to be baffled.  As he advanced toward her, she regarded him with some apprehension until he stopped a safe six feet away.  She had noted certain lines of determination in his face.

“Now what’s the use of pretending?—­what did you run for?”

“I?—­run?”

Again the curving black brows went up in frank surprise.

“Yes,—­you run!”

He took a threatening step forward, and the brows promptly fell to serious intentness of his face.

“What did you do it for?”

She stood up.  “What did I do it for?—­what did I do what for?”

But his eyes were searching her and she had to lower her own.  Then she looked up again, and laughed nervously.

“I—­I don’t know—­I couldn’t help it.”  Again she laughed.  “And why did you run?  How did you think of coming here?”

“I’ll tell you how, now I’ve caught you.”  He started toward her, but she was quickly backing away into the opening of the little park, still laughing.

“Look out for that blow-down back of you!” he called.  In the second that she halted to turn and discover his trick he had caught her by the arm.

“There—­I caught you fair—­now what did you run for?”

“I couldn’t help it.”  Her face was crimson.  His own was pale under the tan.  They could hear the beating of both their hearts.  But with his capture made so boldly he was dumb, knowing not what to say.

The faintest pulling of the imprisoned arm aroused him.

“I’d ‘a’ followed you till Christmas come if you’d kept on.  Clear over the divide and over the whole creation.  I never would have given you up.  I’m never going to.”

He caught her other wrist and sought to draw her to him.