Alice Marcum stood upon the edge of the lumber-pile with the wind whipping her skirts about her silk stockings as the Texan, saddle over his arm, glanced up and waved, a gauntleted hand.  The girl returned the greeting with a cold-eyed stare and once more found herself growing furiously angry.  For the man’s lips twisted into their cynical smile as his eyes rested for a moment upon her own, shifted, lingered with undisguised approval upon her silk stockings, and with devilish boldness, returned to her own again.  Suddenly his words flashed through her brain.  “I always get what I go after—­sometimes.”  She recalled the consummate skill with which he had conquered the renegade steer and the outlaw broncho—­mastered them completely, and yet always in an off-hand manner as though the thing amused him.  Never for a moment had he seemed to exert himself—­never to be conscious of effort.  Despite herself the girl shuddered nervously, and ignoring Endicott’s proffer of assistance, scrambled to the ground and hastened toward her coach.

A young lady who possessed in a high degree a very wholesome love of adventure, Alice Marcum coupled with it a very unwholesome habit of acting on impulse.  As unamenable to reason as she was impervious to argument, those who would remonstrate with her invariably found themselves worsted by the simple and easy process of turning their weapons of attack into barriers of defence.  Thus when, an hour later, Winthrop Adams Endicott found her seated alone at a little table in the dining-car he was agreeably surprised when she greeted him with a smile and motioned him into the chair opposite.

“For goodness’ sake, Winthrop, sit down and talk to me.  There’s nothing so stupid as dining alone—­and especially when you want to talk to somebody.”  As Endicott seated himself, she rattled on:  “I wanted to go to that preposterous supper they are going to ‘dish up’ at the hotel, but when I found they were going to separate the ’ladies and gents’ and feed them in relays, I somehow lost the urge.  The men, most of them, are interesting—­but the women are deadly.  I know just what it would be—­caught snatches of it from the wagons during the lulls—­preserves, and babies, and what Harry’s ma died of.  The men carry an atmosphere of unrestraint—­of freshness——­”

Endicott interrupted her with a nod:  “Yes,” he observed, dryly, “I believe that is the term——­”

“Don’t be guilty of a pun, Winthrop.  At least, not a slangy one.  It’s quite unsuited to your style of beauty.  But, really, wasn’t it all delightful?  Did you ever see such riding, and shooting, and lassoing?”

“No.  But I have never lived in a country where it is done.  I have always understood that cowboys were proficient along those lines, but why shouldn’t they be?  It’s their business——­”

“There you go—­reducing everything to terms of business!  Can’t you see the romance of it—­what it stands for?  The wild free life of the plains, the daily battling with the elements, and the mastery of nerve and skill over blind brute force and fury!  I love it!  And tonight I’m going to a real cowboy dance.”