He wore the wide hat of the West, but his neat, dark coat, though badly wrinkled, was well cut, and his crimson tie and dark blue shirt were handsomely decorative.

His face was older, sterner, and sadder than when he faced Mary three years before.

No trace of boyhood was in his manner.

Seven years of life on the long trail and among the mountain peaks had taught him silence, self-restraint, and had also deepened his native melancholy.

He had ridden into Wagon Wheel from the West, eager to see the great mining camp whose fame had filled the world.
As he stood so, with the light of the setting sun in his face, the melancholy of a tiger in his eyes, a woman in an open barouche rode by.
Her roving glance lighted upon his figure and rested there.