“You see,” she explained, “I have always lived here, except my three years at school.  Father taught me to use a riata, as he taught me to ride and shoot, because—­well—­because it’s all a part of this life, and very useful sometimes; just as it is useful to know about hotels and time-tables and taxicabs, in that other part of the world.”

“I understand,” he said gently.  “It was stupid of me to notice it.  I beg your pardon for interrupting the story of my rescue.  You had just roped Snip while he was doing his best to outrun Midnight—­simple and easy as calling a taxi—­’Number Two Thousand Euclid Avenue, please’—­and there you are.”

“Oh, do you know Cleveland?” she cried.

For an instant he was confused.  Then he said easily, “Everybody has heard of the famous Euclid Avenue.  But how did you guess where Snip had left me?”

“Why, Stella had told me that you were riding the drift fence,” she answered, tactfully ignoring the evasion of her question.  “I just followed the fence.  So there was no magic about it at all, you see.”

“I’m not so sure about the magic,” he returned slowly.

“This is such a wonderful country—­to me—­that one can never be quite sure about anything.  At least, I can’t.  But perhaps that’s because I am such a new thing.”

“And do you like it?” she asked, frankly curious about him.

“Like being a new thing?” he parried.  “Yes and No.”

“I mean do you like this wonderful country, as you call it?”

“I admire the people who belong to it tremendously,” he returned.  “I never met such men before—­or such women,” he finished with a smile.

“But, do you like it?” she persisted.  “Do you like the life—­your work—­would you be satisfied to live here always?”

“Yes and No,” he answered again, hesitatingly.

“Oh, well,” she said, with, he thought, a little bitterness and rebellion, “it doesn’t really matter to you whether you like it or not, because you are a man.  If you are not satisfied with your environment, you can leave it—­go away somewhere else—­make yourself a part of some other life.”

He shook his head, wondering a little at her earnestness.  “That does not always follow.  Can a man, just because he is a man, always have or do just what he likes?”

“If he’s strong enough,” she insisted.  “But a woman must always do what other people like.”

He was sure now that she was speaking rebelliously.

She continued, “Can’t you, if you are not satisfied with this life here, go away?”

“Yes, but not necessarily to any life I might desire.  Perhaps some sheriff wants me.  Perhaps I am an escaped convict.  Perhaps—­oh, a thousand things.”

She laughed aloud in spite of her serious mood.  “What nonsense!”

“But, why nonsense?  What do you and your friends know of me?”

“We know that you are not that kind of a man,” she retorted warmly, “because”—­she hesitated—­“well, because you are not that sort of a man.”