Alice saw that his eyes were serious as he set the bottle upon the rock beside him.  And then, hardly discernible at first, but gradually assuming distinct form, a whimsical smile curved his lips as he looked at the bottle.

“Gosh!” he breathed, softly, “ain’t you an’ I had some nonsensical times?  I ain’t a damned bit sorry, neither.  But our trails fork here.  Maybe for a while—­maybe for ever.  But if it is for ever, my average will be right honourable if I live to be a hundred.”  Alice noticed how boyish the clean-cut features looked when he smiled that way.  The other smile—­the masking, cynical smile—­made him ten years older.  The face was once more grave, and he raised the bottle from the rock.  “So long,” he said, and there was just that touch of honest regret in his voice with which he would have parted from a friend.  “So long.  I’ve got a choice to make—­an’ I don’t choose you.”

The hand that held the bottle was empty.  There was a moment of silence and then from far below came the tinkle of smashing glass.  The Texan got up, adjusted the silk scarf at his neck, rolled a cigarette, and clambering down the sharp descent, made his way toward the grazing horses.  Alice watched for a moment as he walked up to his own horse, stroked his neck, and lightly cuffed at the ears which the horse laid back as he playfully snapped at his master’s hand.  Then she scrambled from her hiding-place and hurried unobserved to her tent, where she threw herself upon the blankets with a sound that was somehow very like a sob.

When the breakfast of cold coffee and biscuits was finished the Texan watched Endicott’s clumsy efforts to roll a cigarette.

“Better get you a piece of twine to do it with, Win,” he grinned; “you sure are a long ways from home when it comes to braidin’ a smoke.  Saw a cow-hand do it once with one hand.  In a show, it was in Cheyenne, an’ he sure was some cowboy—­in the show.  Come out onto the flats one day where the boys was breakin’ a bunch of Big O Little O horses—­’after local colour,’ he said.”  The Texan paused and grinned broadly.  “Got it too.  He clum up into the middle of a wall-eyed buckskin an’ the doc picked local colour out of his face for two hours where he’d slid along on it—­but he could roll a cigarette with one hand.  There, you got one at last, didn’t you?  Kind of humped up in the middle like a snake that’s swallowed a frog, but she draws all right, an’ maybe it’ll last longer than a regular one.”  He turned to Alice who had watched the operation with interest.

“If you-all don’t mind a little rough climbin’, I reckon, you’d count the view from the rim-rocks yonder worth seein’.”

“Oh, I’d love it!” cried the girl, as she scrambled to her feet.

“Come on, Win,” called the Texan, “I’ll show you where God dumped the tailin’s when He finished buildin’ the world.”

Together the three scaled the steep rock-wall.  Alice, scorning assistance, was the first to reach the top, and once more the splendour of the magnificent waste held her speechless.