rd's place, just as if-- Ward'll take a shot at
them if he catches them nosing through his stock!" She scowled at a
big D cow that thrust her head out of an alder thicket and sent Blue in
after her. Frowning, she watched the animal go lumbering down the hill
toward the Wolverine. "Just because he's a stranger and doesn't mix
with people, and minds his own business and is trying to get a start,
they're suspicious--as if a man has no right to-- Well, I think I
managed to head them off, anyway."

Her satisfaction lasted while she rode to the next ridge. Then the
little devils of doubt came a-swarming and a-whispering. She had said
she knew all about Ward; well, she did, to a greater extent than others
knew. But--she wondered if she did not know too much, or if she knew
enough. There were some things--

She turned, upon the crest of the ridge, and looked away toward the
pine-dotted height locally known as the Big Hill, beyond which Ward's
claim lay snuggled out of sight in its little valley. "I've a good
mind to ride over there right now, and make him tell me," she said to
herself. She stopped Blue and sat there undecided, while the wind
lifted a lock of hair and flipped it across her cheek. "If he
cares--like he says he cares--he'll tell me," she murmured. "I don't
believe it's wolves. And of course it isn't--what those fellows seemed
to think. But--where did he get the money for all that?" She sighed
distressfully. "I hate to ask him; he'd think I didn't trust him, and
I do. I do trust him!" There was the little head-devil of doubt, and
she fought him fiercely. "I do! I do!" She thrust the declaration of
faith like a sword through the doubt-devil that clung and whispered.
"Dear Ward! I do trust you!" She blinked back tears and bit her lips
to stop their quivering. "But, darn it, I don't see why you didn't
tell me!" There it was: a perfectly human, woman-resentment toward a
nagging mystery.

She headed Blue down the slope and as straight for the Big Hill as she
could go. She would go and make Ward tell her what he had been doing;
not that she had any doubt herself that it was perfectly all right,
whatever it was, but she felt that she had a right to demand facts, so
that she could feel more sure of her ground. And there would be more
questions; Billy Louise was bright enough to see thus far into the
future. Unless the rustlers were caught, there would be questions
asked about this silent str