Endicott smiled: "Yes, little girl, he is good. He's a man--every inch of him. And he's a man among men. He's honest and open hearted and human. There is not a mean hair in his head. And he stands a great deal nearer the top of his profession than I do to the top of mine. I have been a fool, Alice. I can see now what a complacent fool and a cad I must have been--when I could look at these men and see nothing but uncouthness. But, thank God, men can change----"
Impulsively the girl reached for his hand: "No," she murmured, remembering the words of the Texan, "no, the man was there all the time. The real man that is _you_ was concealed by the unreal man that is superficiality."
"Thank you, Alice," he said gravely. "And for your sake--and I say it an all sincerity--let the best man win!"
The girl smiled up into his face: "And in all sincerity I will say that in all your life you have never seemed so--so marryable as you do right now."
While Endicott cut a supply of fire-wood and tinkered about the spring, the girl made a complete circuit of the little plateau, and as the shadows began to lengthen they once more climbed to their lookout station. For an hour the vast corrugated plane before them showed no sign of life. Suddenly the girl's fingers clutched Endicott's arm and she pointed to a lone horseman who rode from the north.
"I wonder if he's the same one we saw before--the one who rode away so fast?"
"Not unless he has changed horses," answered Endicott. "The other rode a grey."
The man swung from his horse and seemed to be minutely studying the ground. Then he mounted and headed down the coulee at a trot.
"Look! There is Tex!" cried Endicott, and he pointed farther down the same coulee. A sharp bend prevented either rider from noticing the approach of the other.
"Oh, I wonder who it is, and what will happen when they see each other?" cried the girl. "Look! There is Bat. Near the top of that ridge. He's cutting across so he'll be right above them when they meet." She was leaning forward watching: breathlessly the movements of the three horsemen. "It is unreal. Just like some great spectacular play. You see the actors moving through their parts and you wonder what is going to happen next and how it is all going to work out."