“I don’t know,” he returned awkwardly.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” she said.  “You didn’t cotton to the Kernel and Rawlins much more than you did to Stanner.  They ain’t your kind.”

In his embarrassment Hale blundered upon the thought he had honorably avoided.

“Suppose,” he said, with a constrained laugh, “I had stayed to see you.”

“I reckon I ain’t your kind, neither,” she replied promptly.  There was a momentary pause when she rose and walked to the chimney.  “It’s very quiet down there,” she said, stooping and listening over the roughly-boarded floor that formed the ceiling of the room below.  “I wonder what’s going on.”

In the belief that this was a delicate hint for his return to the party he had left, Hale rose, but the girl passed him hurriedly, and, opening the door, cast a quick glance into the stable beyond.

“Just as I reckoned—­the horses are gone too.  They’ve skedaddled,” she said blankly.

Hale did not reply.  In his embarrassment a moment ago the idea of taking an equally sudden departure had flashed upon him.  Should he take this as a justification of that impulse, or how?  He stood irresolutely gazing at the girl, who turned and began to descend the stairs silently.  He followed.  When they reached the lower room they found it as they had expected—­deserted.

“I hope I didn’t drive them away,” said Hale, with an uneasy look at the troubled face of the girl.  “For I really had an idea of going myself a moment ago.”

She remained silent, gazing out of the window.  Then, turning with a slight shrug of her shoulders, said half defiantly:  “What’s the use now?  Oh, Maw! the Stanner crowd has vamosed the ranch, and this yer stranger kalkilates to stay!”

CHAPTER VII

A week had passed at Eagle’s Court—­a week of mingled clouds and sunshine by day, of rain over the green plateau and snow on the mountain by night.  Each morning had brought its fresh greenness to the winter-girt domain, and a fresh coat of dazzling white to the barrier that separated its dwellers from the world beyond.  There was little change in the encompassing wall of their prison; if anything, the snowy circle round them seemed to have drawn its lines nearer day by day.  The immediate result of this restricted limit had been to confine the range of cattle to the meadows nearer the house, and at a safe distance from the fringe of wilderness now invaded by the prowling tread of predatory animals.

Nevertheless, the two figures lounging on the slope at sunset gave very little indication of any serious quality in the situation.  Indeed, so far as appearances were concerned, Kate, who was returning from an afternoon stroll with Falkner, exhibited, with feminine inconsistency, a decided return to the world of fashion and conventionality apparently just as she was effectually excluded from it.  She had not only discarded her white dress