o
keep right on after your horse, Sue," laughed Pratt. "You ask Mr. Sam
Harding--or any of them."

Sue's pretty face was marred by a frown, and she tossed her head. "I
don't need to ask them. Didn't you catch me as I fell?"

"Oh, but, Sue----"

"Of course," said the Boston girl, in a tone quite loud enough for
Frances to hear, "those cowmen would back up their employer. They'd say
she helped me. But I know whom to thank. You are too modest, Pratt."

Pratt was silenced. He saw that it was useless to try to convince Sue
that she was wrong. It was plain that the girl from Boston did not wish
to feel beholden to Frances Rugley.

So the young man dropped the subject. He ran after his own pony, and
then brought Sue's stubborn mount to her hand. Sue was being
congratulated and made much of by her friends. None of them spoke to
Frances.

Pratt came over to the latter before she could ride away after the
bawling steer. Blackwater was going to be branded this time if it took
the whole force of the Bar-T to accomplish it!

"Thank you, Frances, for what you did," the young man said, grasping her
hand. "And Bill will thank you, too. He'll know that it was your work
that saved her; Mrs. Edwards isn't used to cattle and isn't to be
blamed. I feel foolish to have them put it on me."

Frances laughed. She would not show Pratt that this whole series of
incidents had hurt her deeply.

"Don't make a mountain out of a mole-hill, Pratt," she said. "And you
did do a brave thing. That girl would have been hurt if you had not
caught her."

"Oh, I don't know," he grumbled.

"I reckon she thinks so, anyway," said Frances, her eyes twinkling. "How
does it feel to be a hero, Pratt?"

Pratt blushed and turned away. "I don't want to wear any laurels that
are not honestly my own," he muttered.

"But you don't object to Miss Boston's expression of gratitude, Pratt?"
teased Frances.

He made a little face at her as he went back to the ranchman's wife and
her guests; without another word Frances spurred Molly in the other
direction, and before Mrs. Bill Edwards could speak to her the girl of
the ranges was far away.

She headed for the West Run, where a large herd of the Bar-T cattle
grazed. Nor did she look back again to see what became of the group of
riders who were with Mrs. Edwards and Pratt.

Frances had no heart for such company just then. Sue Latrop's manner had
really hurt the Western girl. Perhaps Frances was easily wounde