Graham, riding solitary¹ through the redwood canyons² among the hills that overlooked the ranch⁴ center, was getting acquainted with Selim, the eleven-hundred-pound, coal-black gelding which Dick had furnished him in place of the lighter⁵ Altadena. As he rode along, learning the good nature, the roguishness and the dependableness of the animal, Graham hummed the words of the “Gypsy Trail” and allowed them to lead his thoughts. Quite carelessly, foolishly, thinking of bucolic⁶ lovers carving⁷ their initials on forest trees, he broke a spray of laurel and another of redwood. He had to stand in the stirrups to pluck a long-stemmed, five-fingered fern with which to bind⁸ the sprays into a cross. When the patteran was fashioned, he tossed it on the trail before him and noted⁹ that Selim passed over without treading upon it. Glancing back, Graham watched it to the next turn of the trail. A good omen¹⁰, was his thought, that it had not been trampled¹¹.  
More five-fingered ferns to be had for the reaching, more branches of redwood and laurel brushing his face as he rode, invited him to continue the manufacture of patterans, which he dropped as he fashioned them. An hour later, at the head of the canyon³, where he knew the trail over the divide was difficult and stiff, he debated his course and turned back.
 
Selim warned him by nickering. Came an answering nicker from close at hand. The trail was wide and easy, and Graham put his mount into a fox trot¹², swung a wide bend, and overtook Paula on the Fawn¹³.
 
“Hello!” he called. “Hello! Hello!”
 
She reined¹⁴ in till he was alongside.
 
“I was just turning back,” she said. “Why did you turn back? I thought you were going over the divide to Little Grizzly¹⁶.”
 
“You knew I was ahead of you?” he asked, admiring the frank, boyish way of her eyes straight-gazing into his.
 
“Why shouldn’t I? I had no doubt at the second patteran.”
 
“Oh, I’d forgotten about them,” he laughed guiltily. “Why did you turn back?”
 
She waited until the Fawn and Selim had stepped over a fallen alder¹⁷ across the trail, so that she could look into Graham’s eyes when she answered:
 
“Because I did not care to follow your trail.—­To follow anybody’s trail,” she quickly amended¹⁸. “I turned back at the second one.”
 
He failed of a ready answer, and an awkward silence was between them. Both were aware of this awkwardness, due to the known but unspoken things.
 
“Do you make a practice of dropping patterans?” Paula asked.
 
“The first I ever left,” he replied, with a shake of the head. “But there was such a generous supply of materials it seemed a pity, and, besides, the song was haunting me.”
 
“It was haunting me this morning when I woke up,” she said, this time her face straight ahead so that she might avoid a rope of wild grapevine that hung close to her side of the trail.
 
And Graham, gazing at her face in profile, at her crown of gold-brown hair, at her singing throat, felt the old ache at the heart, the hunger and the yearning¹⁹. The nearness of her was a provocation²⁰. The sight of her, in her fawn-colored silk corduroy, tormented²¹ him with a rush of visions of that form of hers—­swimming Mountain Lad, swan-diving through forty feet of air, moving down the long room in the dull-blue dress of medieval fashion with the maddening knee-lift of the clinging draperies.
 
“A penny for them,” she interrupted his visioning. His answer was prompt.
 
“Praise to the Lord for one thing: you haven’t once mentioned Dick.”
 
“Do you so dislike him?”
 
“Be fair,” he commanded, almost sternly. “It is because I like him. Otherwise...”
 
“What?” she queried²².
 
Her voice was brave, although she looked straight before her at the Fawn’s pricking²³ ears.
 
“I can’t understand why I remain. I should have been gone long ago.”
 
“Why?” she asked, her gaze still on the pricking ears.
 
“Be fair, be fair,” he warned. “You and I scarcely need speech for understanding.”
 
She turned full upon him, her cheeks warming with color, and, without speech, looked at him. Her whip-hand rose quickly, half way, as if to press her breast, and half way paused irresolutely²⁴, then dropped down to her side. But her eyes, he saw, were glad and startled. There was no mistake. The startle lay in them, and also the gladness. And he, knowing as it is given some men to know, changed the bridle²⁵ rein¹⁵ to his other hand, reined close to her, put his arm around her, drew her till the horses rocked, and, knee to knee and lips on lips, kissed his desire to hers. There was no mistake—­pressure to pressure, warmth to warmth, and with an elate thrill he felt her breathe against him.
 
The next moment she had torn herself loose. The blood had left her face. Her eyes were blazing. Her riding-whip rose as if to strike him, then fell on the startled Fawn. Simultaneously²⁶ she drove in both spurs with su............