A little later she heard the man’s voice, calling.  Clearly to her, since there was no one else.  Why should he call to her?  She gave no sign of having heard, but walked on a trifle faster.  She sensed that he was galloping down upon her; still in the loose sand the hoof-beats were muffled.  Then when he called a second time she stopped and turned and waited.

A splendid big fellow he was, she noted as he came on, riding a splendid big horse.  Man and beast seemed to belong to the desert; had it not been for the glint of the sun she realized now, she probably would not have distinguished their distant forms from the land across which they had moved.  The horse was a darkish, dull gray; the man, boots, corduroy breeches, soft shirt, and hat, was garbed in gray or so covered with the dust of travel as to seem so.

“What in the world are you doing way out here?” he called to her.  And then having come closer he reined in his horse, stared at her a moment in surprised wonderment, swept off his hat and said, a shade awkwardly:  “I beg pardon.  I thought you were some one else.”

For her wide hat was again drooping about her face, and he had had just the form of her and the white skirt and waist to judge by.

“It is all right,” she said lightly.  “I imagined that you had made a mistake.”

It was something of a victory over herself to have succeeded in speaking thus carelessly.  For there had been the impulse, a temptation almost, just to stare back at the man as he had stared at her and in silence.  Not only was the type physically magnificent; to her it was, like everything about her, new.  And that which had held her at first was his eyes.  For it is not the part of youth to be stern-eyed; and while this man could not be more than midway between twenty and thirty, his eyes had already acquired the trick of being hard, steely, suggesting relentlessness, stern and quick.  Tall, lean-bodied, with big calloused hands, as brown as an Indian, hair and eyes were uncompromisingly black.  He belonged to the southwestern wastes.

These things she noted, and that his face was drawn and weary, that about his left hand was tied a handkerchief, hinting at a minor cut, that his horse looked as travel-worn as himself.

“One doesn’t see strangers often around San Juan,” he explained.  “As for a girl . . .  Well, I never made a mistake like this before.  I’ll have to look out.”  The muscles of the tired face softened a little, into his eyes came a quick light that was good to see, for an instant masking their habitual sternness.  “If you’ll excuse me again, and if you don’t know a whole lot about this country . . .”  He paused to measure her sweepingly, seemed satisfied, and concluded:  “I wouldn’t go out all alone like this; especially after sundown.  We’re a rather tough lot, you know.  Good-by.”

He lifted his hat again, loosened his horse’s reins, and passed by her.  Just as she had expected, just as she had desired.  And yet, with his dusty back turned upon her, she experienced a sudden return of her loneliness.  Would she ever look into the eyes of a friend again?  Could she ever actually accomplish what she had set out to accomplish; make San Juan a home?