get to know someone whose friendship I think I would come to value. Through his curtain of hostility, there were signs of a shy reaching for friendship, coupled with an inability to go about gaining such a friendship successfully. How many people of that sort there have always been! Frequently they are the strong, silent self-subsistent sort outwardly-tragically unable to contribute to the web of human understanding and friendship on which the fabric of humanity spun.

The rest of the trip to the ranch was uneventful except for my trick knee, inherited from high school football days, which began to rebel against so much use. Shadows from the mile-high cliffs had already swept across the canyon as I reached the foot bridge spanning the Colorado and hiked over, just to touch the other side. The buffet supper was excellent. I drank seven glasses of iced tea and met a beautiful, outdoorsy type girl from Pittsburgh. She and I and a number of others who had ridden down from El Tovar on horseback swam in the ranch pool. It didn't appeal to me nearly as much as the natural pool back on the trail, and I could not help but think of the strange cowboy, back there in his lonely cabin on the trail. What was he running away from, working down there, or was he simply one of those eternal strangers who must have isolation in which to breathe? Still puzzling, I fell asleep under a narrow cleft of sky over which the stars wheeled in cold symmetry.

At four-thirty next morning I was called by the kitchen mess. Half an hour later I had showered, dressed, worked through a stack of flapjacks, picked up my lunchbox the boys in the kitchen had packed for me and set off through the ranch grounds. The sandy soil was damply cool and smelled of growing plants. Off in the distance I saw the creek under a patch of morning mist. running to meet its roistering mother, down below. The tip of Shinumo Altar, a mile above me, caught the morning sun; down here it was still night. Just as well too-I needed an early start if I was going to get to the top, for my knee was giving me trouble already. At the first place where the trail begins to climb I had to find myself a walking stick. I cursed myself for forgetting to bring by basketball kneeguard, which would have made the stick unnecessary. About nine-thirty, I saw the rock ridge ahead which held back the water of my swimming pool. I could scarcely believe my eyes, for there stood the big chestnut mare, at almost the same spot she had been yesterday. Was that character still guarding his precious pool I asked myself angrily for, to tell the truth, I had counted on sneaking in another swim and working some of the stiffness out of my knee. As I hobbled painfully up over the rise, I saw my ranger friend stretched out flat on a rock beside the pool, his black swimming trunks still damp from water which was dripping back toward his swimming hole! He heard me approaching, raised himself on his right elbow, cupped his hand over his eyes and grinned sheepishly.

I was too angry to appreciate the change of mood-now I could use some of those cracks I'd thought up on the trail yesterday too late. "Glad," I said, "rangers don't pollute water the way ordinary citizens do."

"Come off it," he smiled disarmingly, "I'm really sorry about yesterday." He paused and looked solemnly at me for a moment; it was that same direct gaze that seemed to belie what he had said yesterday. "You know the real reason why I told you to get out of the water?" he went on, finally. "I did see you when you came up to my place yesterday and I-well, I was afraid to answer the door. Instead, when you took off, I followed you down the trail on old Cleo there," he nodded to the mare, "don't ask me why--and I watched you get into the pool. All that time, I'd decided I wanted to talk to you but couldn't figure anything to say that

one

12