The cloud grew and grew and began drifting down the trail, and behind it a black something rose over the hilltop and followed it, so proclaiming itself a horseman galloping swiftly towards her.  The color spread from the schoolma’am’s cheeks to her brow and throat.  Her fingers forgot their cunning and plucked harrowing discords from the strings, but her lips were parted and smiling tremulously.  It was late—­she had almost given up looking—­but he was coming!  She knew be would come.  Coming at a breakneck pace—­he must be pretty anxious, too.  The schoolma’am recovered a bit of control and revolved in her mind several pert forms of greeting.  She would not be too ready to forgive him—­it would do him good to keep him anxious and uncertain for a while before she gave in.

Now he was near the place where he would turn off the main road and gallop straight to her.  Glory always made that turn of his own accord, lately.  Weary had told her, last Sunday, how he could never get Glory past that turn, any more, without a fight, no matter what might be the day or the hour.

Now he would swing into the school-house trail.  Miss Satterly raised both hands with a very feminine gesture and patted her hair tentatively, tucking in a stray lock here and there.

Her hands dropped heavily to her lap, just as the blood dropped away from her cheeks and the happy glow dulled in her eyes.  It was not Weary.  It was the Swede who worked for Jim Adams and who rode a sorrel horse which, at a distance, resembled Glory.

Mechanically she watched him go on down the trail and out of sight; picked up her guitar which had grown suddenly heavy, crept inside and closed the door and locked it She looked around the clean, eerily silent schoolroom, walked with echoing steps to the desk and laid her head down among the cans of sweet-smelling, prairie flowers and cried softly, in a tired, heartbreaking fashion that made her throat ache, and her head.

The shadows had flowed over the coulee-rim and the hilltops were smothered in gloom when Miss Satterly went home that night, and her aunt Meeker sent her straight to bed and dosed her with horrible home remedies.

By morning she had recovered her spirit—­her revengeful spirit, which she kept as the hours wore on and Weary did not come.  She would teach him a lesson, she told herself often.  By evening, however, her mood softened.  There were many things that could have kept him away against his will; he was not his own master, and it was shipping time.  Probably he had been out with the roundup, or something.  She decided that petty revenge is unwomanly besides giving evidence of a narrow mind and shallow, and if Weary could show a good and sufficient reason for staying away like that when there were matters to be settled between them, she would not be petty and mean about it; she would be divine—­and forgive.

PART THREE