It did not make him feel any better when Jack laughed suddenly and loud. “R-r-r-evenge!  By my heart’s blood, I shall have r-r-evenge!” he intoned mockingly.  “Gwan outa my sight, Hank.  You ain’t making any hit with me at all. Scat!"

“All right fer you!” Hank grumbled, in the futile repartee of the stupid.  “You think you’re smart, but I don’t.  You wait!” Then he rode away down the trail, glowering at the world through puffy lids and repeating to himself many crushing things he wished he had thought to say to Jack.

Jack himself had recourse to a small bottle of iodine left there by a predecessor, painting his scratches liberally, and grinning at himself in the little mirror because Hank had not once landed a bruising blow on his face.  After that he washed the dishes and went to the spring for a bucket of fresh water, whistling all the way.  It was amazing how that fight had cleared his mental atmosphere.

After that, he perched up on the little rock pinnacle just behind the station, and stared down the mountain toward Toll-Gate Flat, where she lived.  He saw Hank ride into the balsam thicket; and he, too, thought of several things he regretted not having said to Hank.  What rotten luck it was that he should be held up here on that pinnacle while Hank Brown could ride at his leisure down into that tiny valley!  The government ought to gather up all the Hank Browns in the country and put them up on such places as these, and let decent fellows do the riding around.

Down there, beyond the trail, on a slope where the manzanita was not quite so matted together, he saw something move slowly.  Then it stopped, and he got a gleam of light, the reflection, evidently of some bright object.  He lifted the telescope and focussed it, and his heart came leaping up into his throat just as the figure came leaping into close view through the powerful lense.

It was Marion Rose, up by the hydrometer that looked something like a lone beehive perched on a wild slope by itself.  She was sitting on a rock with her feet crossed, and she was inspecting her chin in the tiny mirror of her vanity bag.  Some blemish—­or more likely an insect bite, from the way her fingertip pressed carefully a certain point of her chin—­seemed to hold all her attention.  It was the sun flashing on the bit of mirror that had made the gleam.

Jack watched her hungrily; her slim shape, leaning negligently sidewise; her hat pushed back a little; her hair, the color of ripe corn, fluffed where the wind had blown it; the clear, delicate, creamy tint of her skin, her mouth curved in soft, red lines that held one’s eyes fascinated when they moved in speech.  He watched her, never thinking of the rudeness of it.

And then he saw her lift her face and look up to the peak, directly at him, it seemed to him.  His face turned hot, and he lowered the glass guiltily.  But of course she could not see him—­or if she could, he looked no more than a speck on the rock.  He lifted the telescope again, and her face jumped into close view.  She was still looking up his way, the little mirror turning idly in her hand.  Her face was thoughtful; almost wistful, he dared to think.  Perhaps she was lonesome, too.  She had told him that she had spells of being terribly lonesome.