o mean, Marthy," she said bravely.
"I haven't any excuse to make for it; only you must see yourself what a
shock it would be to a person to find those cattle down here. But I
know you're honest, and so is Charlie. And I know you'll do what's
right. I'm sorry I told Charlie to go to the devil, and I'm sorry I
shot your dog, Marthy."

Apologies did not come easily to Billy Louise. She wheeled then and
rode away at a furious gallop, before Marthy could do more than open
her grim lips for reply.

CHAPTER XXIII

BILLY LOUISE GETS A SURPRISE

Frightened, worried, sick at heart because her crowding doubts and
suspicions had suddenly developed into black certainty just when she
had thought them dead forever, Billy Louise rode up the narrow, rocky
gorge. She had come to have a vague comprehension of the temptation
Ward must have felt. She had come to accept pityingly the possibility
that the canker of old influences had eaten more deeply than appeared
on the surface. She had set herself stanchly beside him as his friend,
who would help him win back his self-respect. She felt sure that he
must suffer terribly with that keen, analytical mind of his, when he
stopped to think at all. He had no warped ethics wherewith to ease his
conscience. She knew his ideas of right and wrong were as
uncompromising as her own, and if he stole cattle, he did it with his
eyes wide open to the wrong he was doing. And yet--

"That's bad enough, but to try and fasten evidence on someone else!"
Billy Louise gritted her teeth over the treachery of it. She believed
he had done that very thing. How could she help it? She had seen the
corral and had seen Ward ride away from it in the dusk of evening; or
she believed she had seen him, which was the same thing. She knew that
Ward's prosperity was out of proportion with his visible resources.
And she knew what lay behind him. Was his version of the past after
all the correct one? Might not the paragraph she had burned been
nothing more than the truth?

Billy Louise fought for him; fought with her stern, youthful judgment
which was so uncompromising. It takes years of close contact with life
to give one a sure understanding of human weakness and human endeavor.

At the ford, when Blue would have crossed and taken the trail home,
Billy Louise reined him impulsively the other way. Until that instant
she had not intended to seek Ward, but once her fingers had twitched
the reins ag