“Look, what is that behind your shoulder, Dick?”

“Oh, that,” said the Forest Ranger, “that is a well known, game old elderly spinster lady commonly called the Moon; and that other on the branch chittering swear words is nothing in the world but a Douglas squirrel hunting—­I think he is really hunting—­a flea to mix in his spruce tips as salad.”

“Do you know what he is saying?”

“Of course!  Cheer up!  Cheer up!  Chirrup!  He’s our Master Forester—­caches the best seed cones for us to steal.”

But when he turned back, she had freed her hands, and slipped to the other side of the slab seat; and Wayland—­inconsistent fellow—­went all abash when they had both got hold of themselves and were once more back to life with feet on solid earth.

“And is it straddle or—­fight?”

She had put on her panama sunshade and was looking straight and steadily in his eyes.  The Ranger met the look, the eager look slowly and deliberately giving place to determined masterdom.

“If that is a challenge, I’ll take it!” Then he added; and his face went hot as her own:  “As to the freebooters of the Western Wilderness ripping the bowels out of public property out here, I’ll accept that challenge, too!  We’ll put up a bluff of a fight, anyway!”

“I didn’t mean that, Dick.”  She was looking over the edge of the Ridge.  “I couldn’t give a precious gift conditionally if I wanted to, Dick.  It would surely give itself before I could stop it.  Isn’t that always the way?  I wanted you to feel I would be with you in the fight if I could.  They are late.  Father and the missionary, Mr. Williams, and his boy were to have been here an hour ago.  I heard them talking of your struggle against the big steals, and came up here before them to wait.  They are coming to see about changing the sheep from the Holy Cross Range to the Rim Rocks.”

“I can hear ’em coming,” Wayland leaned over the precipice.  “They are coming up the switch back now.  They have a turn or two to take—­we have a few minutes yet—­Eleanor, best gifts come unasked:  perhaps, also, they go unsent.  Listen, I couldn’t Hope to keep the gift unless I jumped in this fight for right; but it’s a man’s job!  I mustn’t desert because of the gift!  I mustn’t take the prize before I finish the job!  I want you to see that—­always that I mind my p’s and q’s and don’t swerve from that resolution.  If I deserted and went down from the Ridge to the Valley, from hard to easy, I wouldn’t be worthy of—­do you understand what I am trying to say to you?”

“Not in the least.  You wouldn’t be worthy of what?”

“Of you,” said Wayland.

“Gifts?” It was the falsetto of a boy’s voice from the trail below the Ridge.  “Who’s talkin’ of gifts and things?”

They heard the others ascending.  Her woman instinct caught at the first straw to hand.  “Photogravures, Fordie, three more to-day.  They are Watts—­”