Lowell and Helen galloped in silence for miles along the road they had followed in the automobile not many days before. At the crest of a high ridge, Helen turned at right angles, and Lowell followed.
"There's a view over here I had appropriated for myself, but I'm willing to share it with you, seeing that this is your own particular reservation and you ought to know about everything it contains," said Helen.
The ridge dipped and then rose again, higher than before. The plains fell away on both sides—infinite miles of undulations. Straight ahead loomed the high blue wall of the mountains. They walked their horses, and finally stopped them altogether. The chattering of a few prairie dogs only served to intensify the great, mysterious silence.
"Sometimes the stillness seems to roll in on you here like a tide," said Helen. "I can positively feel it coming up these great slopes and blanketing everything. It seems to me that this ridge must have been used by Indian watchers in years gone by. I can imagine a scout standing here sending up smoke signals. And those little white puffs of clouds up there are the signals he sent into the sky."
"I think you belong in this country," Lowell answered smilingly.
"I'm sure I do. You remember when I first saw these plains and hills I told you the bigness frightened me a little when the sun brought it all out in detail. Well, it doesn't any more. Just to be unfettered in mind, and to live and breathe as part of all this vastness, would be ideal."
"That's where you're in danger of going to the other extreme," the agent replied. "You'll remember that I told you human companionship is as necessary as bacon and flour and salt in this country. You're more dependent on the people about you here, even if your nearest neighbor is five or ten miles away, than you would be in any apartment building in a big city. You might live and die there, and no one would be the wiser. Also you might get along tolerably well, while living alone. But you can't do it out here and keep a normal mental grip on life."
"My, what a lecture!" laughed the girl, though there was no merriment in her voice. "But it hardly applies to me, for the reason that I always depend upon my neighbors in the ordinary affairs of life. I'm sure I love to be sociable to my Indian neighbors, and even to their agent. Haven't I ridden away out here just to be sociable to you?"
"No dodging! I promised I wouldn't say anything more about the matters that have been disturbing you so, but that promise was contingent on your playing fair with me. I understand Bill Talpers has been causing you some annoyance, and you haven't said a word to me about it."
Helen flashed a startled glance at Lowell. He was impassive as her questioning eyes searched his face. Amazement and concern alternated in her features. Then she took refuge in a blaze of anger.