n did not have the true
ring.

The girl turned upon him with quick distrust. No, he was more glad than
sorry.

"If we were in England," she cried, with withering scorn, "you would
have to be more than sorry."

"In England?"

"Yes, in England, or in Ireland, or anywhere round there. If I'd shot so
much as a miserable pheasant on your land you'd have--you'd have _had me
up before the bailey_!"

Clearly the girl's reading of English fiction had confused her ideas of
British magistracy. But Sir Bryan was generous, and overlooked side
issues.

"Is this your land?" he asked, gazing at the wild mountain side, and
then at the flaming cheeks of the girl. She stood there like an animated
bit of autumn coloring.

"Of course it's my land," she declared.

"But I didn't know it was your land."

"You knew it wasn't _yours_!" she cried vehemently.

Poor Sir Bryan was hopelessly bewildered. The great West was, after all,
not quite like the rest of the world, if charming young ladies owned the
mountain sides, danced attendance upon by bears of dangerous aspect and
polished manners. He blushed violently, but he did not look in the least
awkward.

"I wish you would tell me your name," he said, feeling that if this
remarkable young lady possessed anything so commonplace as a name, the
knowledge of it might place him on a more equal footing with her.

"Certainly, Mr. Bryan," she replied. "My name is Merriman; Kathleen
Merriman," and she looked at him with great dignity but with no
relenting.

"Well, Miss Merriman, I don't suppose there's any good in talking about
it. My being awfully sorry doesn't help matters any. I don't see that
there's anything to be done about it, but to have the carcass carted off
your land as soon as may be."

"Carted off my land!" the girl cried, with kindling indignation. "You
need not trouble yourself to do anything of the kind." Then, with a
sudden change to the elegiac, she fixed her mournful gaze upon her
departed friend and said, "I shall bury him where he lies!"

In this softened mood she seemed less formidable, and Sir Bryan so far
plucked up his spirit as to make a suggestion.

"Perhaps I could help you," he said. "If I had a shovel, or something,
I think I could dig a first-rate grave."

The fair mourner looked at him doubtfully, and then she looked at his
namesake, and apparently the poetic justice of the thing appealed to
her.

"There's a spade over at the house," she said, "and