“What language was that?” Shirley Sumner inquired, consumed with curiosity.

“Digger Indian,” he replied.  “George’s mother was my nurse, and he and I grew up together.  So I can’t very well help speaking the language of the tribe.”

They chattered volubly on many subjects for the first twenty miles; then the road narrowed and commenced to climb steadily, and thereafter Bryce gave all of his attention to the car, for a deviation of a foot from the wheel-rut on the outside of the road would have sent them hurtling over the grade into the deep-timbered canons below.  Their course led through a rugged wilderness, widely diversified and transcendently beautiful, and the girl was rather glad of the opportunity to enjoy it in silence.  Also by reason of the fact that Bryce’s gaze never wavered from the road immediately in front of the car, she had a chance to appraise him critically while pretending to look past him to the tumbled, snow-covered ranges to their right.

She saw a big, supple, powerful man of twenty-five or six, with the bearing and general demeanour of one many years his elder.  His rich, dark auburn hair was wavy, and a curling lock of it had escaped from the band of his cap at the temple; his eyes were brown to match his hair and were the striking feature of a strong, rugged countenance, for they were spaced at that eminently proper interval which proclaims an honest man.  His nose was high, of medium thickness and just a trifle long—­the nose of a thinker.  His ears were large, with full lobes—­the ears of a generous man.  The mouth, full-lipped but firm, the heavy jaw and square chin, the great hands (most amazingly free from freckles) denoted the man who would not avoid a fight worth while.  Indeed, while the girl was looking covertly at him, she saw his jaw set and a sudden, fierce light leap up in his eyes, which at first sight had seemed to her rather quizzical.  Subconsciously he lifted one hand from the wheel and clenched it; he wagged his head a very little bit; consequently she knew his thoughts were far away, and for some reason, not quite clear to her, she would have preferred that they weren’t.  As a usual thing, young men did not go wool-gathering in her presence; so she sought to divert his thoughts to present company.

“What a perfectly glorious country!” she exclaimed.  “Can’t we stop for just a minute to appreciate it?”

“Yes,” he replied abstractedly as he descended from the car and sat at her feet while she drank in the beauty of the scene, “it’s a he country; I love it, and I’m glad to get back to it.”

Upon their arrival at the rest-house, however, Bryce cheered up, and during dinner was very attentive and mildly amusing, although Shirley’s keen wits assured her that this was merely a clever pose and sustained with difficulty.  She was confirmed in this assumption when, after sitting with him a little on the porch after dinner, she complained of being weary and bade him good-night.  She had scarcely left him when he called: