lent, pre-dawn darkness to the stable and
saddled her pony, blanketing and cinching as deftly as her father could
have done it. With her she carried an extra blanket for the wounded man.

The gray light of dawn was beginning to sift into the sky when she
reached the camp of the fugitives. Prince came forward to meet her. She
saw that the fire was now only a bed of coals from which no smoke would
rise to betray them.

The girl swung from the saddle and gave a little jerk of her head toward
Clanton.

"How is he?"

"Slept like a log all night. Feels a heap better this mo'nin'. Wants to
know if he can't have somethin' to eat."

"I killed a couple of prairie plover on the way. We'll make some soup for
him."

The girl walked straight to her patient and looked down at him with
direct and searching eyes. She found no glaze of fever in the ones that
gazed back into hers.

"Hungry, are you?"

"I could eat a mail sack, ma'am."

She stripped the gauntlets from her hands and set about making breakfast.
Jim watched her with alert interest. He was still weak, but life this
morning began to renew itself in him. The pain and the fever had gone and
left him at peace with a world just emerging from darkness into a rosily
flushed dawn. Not the least attractive feature of it was this stunning,
dark-eyed girl who was proving such a friendly enemy.

Her manner to Billie was crisp and curt. She ordered him to fetch and
carry. Something in his slow drawl--some hint of hidden amusement in
his manner--struck a spark of resentment from her quick eye. But toward
Jim she was all kindness. No trouble was too much to take for his
comfort. If he had a whim it must be gratified. Prince was merely a
servant to wait upon him.

The education of Jim Clanton was progressing. As he ate his plover broth
he could not keep his eyes from her. She was so full of vital life. The
color beat through her dark skin warm and rich. The abundant blue-black
hair, the flashing eyes, the fine poise of the head, the little jaunty
swagger of her, so wholly a matter of unconscious faith in her place in
the sun: all of these charmed and delighted him. He had never dreamed of
a girl of such spirit and fire.

It was inevitable that both he and Billie should recall by contrast
another girl who had given them generously of her service not long since.
There were in the country then very few women of any kind. Certainly
within a radius of two hundred miles there was no