Lee Snaith was the most competent young woman the sheriff had ever met.  He knew her self-reliant and had always guessed her sufficient to herself.  Toward him especially he had sensed a suggestion of cool hostility.  They had been friends, but with a distinct note of reservation on her part.

To-night the mask was off.  She had come too close to raw reality to think of her pride.  The morning light was sifting into the sky now.  Billie could see the girl more clearly as she sat on a slab of rock waiting for the other searchers to join them.  Was it his imagination that found in her an unwonted shyness of the dark eyes, a gentle timidity of manner when she looked at him?

His emotion still raced at high tide.  What an incomparable mate she would be for any man!  The rich contralto of her voice, the slow, graceful turn of the exquisite head, the vividness she brought to all her activities!  How easy it was to light in her fine eyes laughter, indignation, the rare smile of understanding!  Life with her would be an adventure into the hill-tops.  With all his heart he yearned to take it beside her.

There were strange flashes in his eyes to-night that signaled to her a message she had despaired of ever receiving.  The long lashes of the girl fell to the hot cheeks.  A pulse of excitement beat in her blood.  A few minutes before she had clung to him despairingly.  Now she wanted to run away and hide.

He stepped close to her and let his hand fall lightly on her arm.

“I’ve been blind all these years, Lee,” he told her.  “It’s you I love.”

She stole a little look at him with shy, incredulous eyes.  “Have you forgotten—­Polly?”

“I haven’t been in love with her for years, but I didn’t know it till about the Christmas holidays.  She was a habit with me.  There never was a sweeter girl than Polly Roubideau.  I’ll always think a heap of her.  But—­well, she had more sense than I had—­knew all the time we weren’t cut out for each other.”  He laughed a little, flushing with embarrassment.  It is not the easiest thing in the world to explain to a girl why you have neglected her in favor of another.

Lee trembled.  The desire was strong in her to seize her happiness while she could.  Surely she had waited long enough for it.  But some impulse of fair play to him or of justice to herself held back the tide of love she longed to release.

“I think ... you are impulsive,” she said at last.  “If you have anything you want to tell me, better wait until ...”

“Not another moment!” he cried.  “I’ve been in torment all night.  I ...  I thought I’d lost you forever.  You don’t care for me, of course.  You never have liked me very well, but—­”

“Haven’t I?” she breathed softly, not looking at him.

Love irradiated and warmed her.  She forgot all she had suffered during the years she had waited for him to know his mind.  She forgot the privations of the past two days.  Her eyes were tender with the mist of unshed tears.