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Transley's eyes reassured him that he had not been led astray by any process of idealization; Zen was all his mind had been picturing her. She was worth the effort. Indeed, a strange sensation of tenderness suffused him as he walked by her side to the door, supporting her a little with his hand.
She sprang on her horse, re-crossed the stream, and set out on a gallop for the camp. On the way she had to ride through one thin line of fire, which she accomplished successfully. Through the smoke she could dimly see Transley's gang fighting the back-fires. She knew that was in good hands, and hastened on to the camp.
"I thought I thought you were one of Mr. Transley's men." Then, with a quick sense of the barrier between them, she added, "I hope you don't think that I that we had anything to do with this?" She indicated the ruined valley with her hand. "No more than I had to do with those coward's stakes," he answered. "Neither of us understand just now, but can we take that much for granted?"
The sun had fallen behind the mountains, the valley was filled with shadow, the afterglow, mauve and purple and copper, was playing far up the sky when Transley's outfit reached the Y.D. corrals. George Drazk had opened the gate and waited beside it. "Y.D. wants you an' Linder to eat with him at the house," he said as Transley halted beside him. "The rest of us eat in the bunk-house."
Transley had learned, what women are said to have learned long ago, that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and the cook had carte blanche. Not a man who ate at Transley's table but would have spilt his blood for the boss or for the honor of the gang. The meal was nearing its end when through a window Linder's eye caught sight of a man on horseback rapidly approaching.
"Perhaps," thought Linder to himself, as he turned the incident over in his mind, "perhaps that is why Transley is boss, and I'm just foreman." The young woman's behavior seemed to support that conclusion. She did not answer Transley's question, but she gave no evidence of displeasure. "You boys must be hungry," Y.D. was saying. "Pile in."
The valleys are swallowed up in the tawny sameness of the ranges; the vision catches only the higher levels, and one may gallop to the verge of a precipice before becoming aware of its existence. It was to this that Zen had referred in speaking of Transley's precipitateness.
She turned again to the water, and after a long while she heard his voice, very low and earnest. "Zen, I could read a fortune for you, if you would not be offended. We are only chance acquaintances not very well acquainted, yet " She knew what he meant, but she pretended she did not. Even in that moment something came to her of Transley's speech about love being a game of pretence.
He turned the sheet over and wrote on the back: "DEAR ZEN, Delighted to come. May have a couple of friends with me, one of whom you have seen before. Prepare for an appetite long denied the joys of home cooking. It was not until after the child had gone home that Grant remembered he had addressed Transley's wife by her Christian name.
When Zen awoke next morning the mowing machines of Transley's outfit were already singing their symphony in the meadows; she could hear the metallic rhythm as it came borne on the early breeze. She lay awake on her camp cot for a few minutes, stretching her fingers to the canvas ceiling and feeling that it was good to be alive. And it was.
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