"Miss, I take that back," added Jean, shortly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. It was a mean trick for me to kiss you. A girl alone in the woods who's gone out of her way to be kind to me! I don't know why I forgot my manners. An' I ask your pardon."
She looked away then, and presently pointed far out and down into the Basin.
"There's Grass Valley. That long gray spot in the black. It's about fifteen miles. Ride along the Rim that way till y'u cross a trail.
Shore y'u can't miss it. Then go down."
"I'm much obliged to you," replied Jean, reluctantly accepting what he regarded as his dismissal. Turning his horse, he put his foot in the stirrup, then, hesitating, he looked across the saddle at the girl.
Her abstraction, as she gazed away over the purple depths suggested loneliness and wistfulness. She was not thinking of that scene spread so wondrously before her. It struck Jean she might be pondering a subtle change in his feeling and attitude, something he was conscious of, yet could not define.
"Reckon this is good-by," he said, with hesitation.
"ADIOS, SENOR," she replied, facing him again. She lifted the little carbine to the hollow of her elbow and, half turning, appeared ready to depart.
"Adios means good-by? " he queried.
"Yes, good-by till to-morrow or good-by forever. Take it as y'u like."
"Then you'll meet me here day after to-morrow?" How eagerly he spoke, on impulse, without a consideration of the intangible thing that had changed him!
"Did I say I wouldn't? "
"No. But I reckoned you'd not care to after--" he replied, breaking off in some confusion.
"Shore I'll be glad to meet y'u. Day after to-morrow about mid-afternoon. Right heah. Fetch all the news from Grass Valley."
"All right. Thanks. That'll be--fine," replied Jean, and as he spoke he experienced a buoyant thrill, a pleasant lightness of enthusiasm, such as always stirred boyishly in him at a prospect of adventure.
Before it passed he wondered at it and felt unsure of himself.
He needed to think.
"Stranger shore I'm not recollectin' that y'u told me who y'u are," she said.
"No, reckon I didn't tell," he returned. "What difference does that make? I said I didn't care who or what you are. Can't you feel the same about me? "
"Shore--I felt that way," she replied, somewhat non-plussed, with the level brown gaze steadily on his face. But now y'u make me think."
"Let's meet without knowin' any more about each other than we do now."
"Shore. I'd like that. In this big wild Arizona a girl--an' I reckon a man--feels so insignificant. What's a name, anyhow? Still, people an' things have to be distinguished. I'll call y'u 'Stranger' an' be satisfied--if y'u say it's fair for y'u not to tell who y'u are."
"Fair! No, it's not," declared Jean, forced to confession. "My name's Jean--Jean Isbel."
"ISBEL!" she exclaimed, with a violent start. "Shore y'u can't be son of old Gass Isbel. . . . I've seen both his sons."
"He has three," replied Jean, with relief, now the secret was out.
"I'm the youngest. I'm twenty-four. Never been out of Oregon till now. On my way--"
The brown color slowly faded out of her face, leaving her quite pale, with eyes that began to blaze. The suppleness of her seemed to stiffen.
"My name's Ellen Jorth," she burst out, passionately. Does it mean anythin' to y'u?"
"Never heard it in my life," protested Jean. "Sure I reckoned you belonged to the sheep raisers who 're on the outs with my father.
That's why I had to tell you I'm Jean Isbel. . . . Ellen Jorth.
It's strange an' pretty. . . . Reckon I can be just as good a--a friend to you--"
"No Isbel, can ever be a friend to me," she said, with bitter coldness.
Stripped of her ease and her soft wistfulness, she stood before him one instant, entirely another girl, a hostile enemy. Then she wheeled and strode off into the woods.
Jean, in amaze, in consternation, watched her swiftly draw away with her lithe, free step, wanting to follow her, wanting to call to her; but the resentment roused by her suddenly avowed hostility held him mute in his tracks. He watched her disappear, and when the brown-and -green wall of forest swallowed the slender gray form he fought against the insistent desire to follow her, and fought in vain.
