"
She laughed. It was the first time. He liked that laugh, and
though he was tempted to look at her, he did not want to show his
surprise or his pleasure.
"Will you take me over there, and all around in the
valley--pretty soon, when I'm well?" she added.
"Indeed I shall. It's a wonderful place. Rabbits so thick you
can't step without kicking one out. And quail, beaver, foxes,
wildcats. We're in a regular den. But--haven't you ever seen a
cliff-dwelling?"
"No. I've heard about them, though. The--the men say the Pass is
full of old houses and ruins."
"Why, I should think you'd have run across one in all your riding
around," said Venters. He spoke slowly, choosing his words
carefully, and he essayed a perfectly casual manner, and
pretended to be busy assorting pieces of pottery. She must have
no cause again to suffer shame for curiosity of his. Yet never in
all his days had he been so eager to hear the details of anyone's
life
"When I rode--I rode like the wind," she replied, "and never had
time to stop for anything."
"I remember that day I--I met you in the Pass--how dusty you
were, how tired your horse looked. Were you always riding?"
"Oh, no. Sometimes not for months, when I was shut up in the
cabin."
Venters tried to subdue a hot tingling.
"You were shut up, then?" he asked, carelessly.
"When Oldring went away on his long trips--he was gone for months
sometimes--he shut me up in the cabin.
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