BUSINESS AT HEART'S DESIRE _This Describing Porter Barkley's Method with a Man, and Tom Osby's Way with a Maid_ Dan Anderson sat for a long time on his blanket roll, looking at the dribbling smoke from the ends of the charred pinon sticks.

So deep was his preoccupation that he did not at first hear the shuffle of feet approaching over the carpet of pine needles; and when the sound came to his consciousness, he wondered merely how Tom Osby had gotten around the camp and come in on that side of the mountain.

Then he looked up.

It was to see the face that had dwelt in his dreams by night, his reveries by day, the face that he had seen but now--the "face that was the fairest"! He sat stupid, staring, conscious that Fate had chided him once more for his unreadiness.

Then he sprang up and stared the harder--stared at Constance Ellsworth coming down the slope between her father and a well-groomed stranger.
The girl looked up, their eyes met; and in that moment Porter Barkley discovered that Constance Ellsworth could gaze with brightening eye and heightened color upon another man.
When Ellsworth and Barkley had started from the hotel in search of the engineer's camp, Constance had joined them ostensibly for the sake of a walk in the morning's sun.