reached by words, no matter how she pelted
them at him.

A sob welled up from her heart. She turned and ran into the house.

Houck grinned, swung to the saddle, and rode up the valley. June would
hate him good and plenty, he thought. That was all right. He had her in
the hollow of his hand. All her thoughts would be full of him. After she
quit struggling to escape she would come snuggling up to him with a
girl's shy blandishments. It was his boast that he knew all about women
and their ways.

June was not given to tears. There was in her the stark pioneer blood
that wrested the West in two generations from unfriendly nature. But the
young virgin soul had been outraged. She lay on the bed of her room, face
down, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of the hands, a lump
in the full brown throat choking her.

She was a wild, free thing of the hills, undisciplined by life. Back of
June's anger and offended pride lurked dread, as yet indefinite and
formless. Who was this stranger who had swaggered into her life and
announced himself its lord and master? She would show him his place,
would teach him how ridiculous his pretensions were. But even as she
clenched her teeth on that promise there rose before her a picture of the
fellow's straddling stride, of the fleering face with its intrepid eyes
and jutting, square-cut jaw. He was stronger than she. No scruples would
hold him back from the possession of his desires. She knew she would
fight savagely, but a chill premonition of failure drenched the girl's
heart.

Later, she went out to the stable where Tolliver was riveting a broken
tug. It was characteristic of the man that all his tools, harness, and
machinery were worn out or fractured. He never brought a plough in out of
the winter storms or mended a leak in the roof until the need was
insistent. Yet he was not lazy. He merely did not know how to order
affairs with any system.

"Who is that man?" June demanded.

He looked up, mildly surprised and disturbed at the imperative in the
girl's voice. "Why, didn't I tell you, honey--Jake Houck?"

"I don't want to know his name. I want to know who he is--all about
him."

Tolliver drove home a rivet before he answered. "Jake's a cowman." His
voice was apologetic. "I seen you didn't like him. He's biggity, Jake
is."

"He's the most hateful man I ever saw," she burst out.

Pete lifted thin, straw-colored eyebrows in questioning, but June had no
intention of te