r. It, too, had the bolt driven
home.

"All right. If it ain't yore shoe I'll take it along with me. So long."

He walked away and waited in the bushes. His expectation was that this
might draw her from cover. It did not.

Half an hour later Tolliver rode across the mesa. He found Houck waiting
for him at the entrance to the corral. Pete nodded a rather surly
greeting. He could not afford to quarrel with the man, but he was one of
the last persons in the world he wanted to see.

"'Lo, Jake," he said. "Back again, eh?"

"Yep. Finished my business. I got to have a talk with you, Pete."

Tolliver slid a troubled gaze at him. What did Jake want? Was it
money--hush money? The trapper did not have fifty dollars to his name,
nor for that matter twenty.

"'S all right, Jake. If there's anything I can do for you--why, all you
got to do's to let me know," he said uneasily.

Houck laughed, derisively. "Sure. I know how fond you are of me, Pete.
You're plumb glad to see me again, ain't you? Jes' a-honin' to talk over
old times, I'll bet."

"I'd as lief forget them days, Jake," Tolliver confessed. "I done turned
over another chapter, as you might say. No need rakin' them up, looks
like."

The big man's grin mocked him. "Tha's up to you, Pete. Me, I aim to be
reasonable. I ain't throwin' off on my friends. All I want's to make sure
they _are_ my friends. Pete, I've took a fancy to yore June. I reckon
I'll fix it up an' marry her."

His cold eyes bored into Tolliver. They held the man's startled, wavering
gaze fixed.

"Why, Jake, you're old enough to be her father," he presently faltered.

"Maybe I am. But if there's a better man anywheres about I'd like to meet
up with him an' have him show me. I ain't but forty-two, Pete, an' I can
whip my weight in wild cats."

The father's heart sank. He knew Houck. The man would get by hook or
crook what he wanted. He could even foretell what his next move would
be.

"She's only a kid, Jake, not thinkin' none about gettin' married. In a
year or two, maybe--"

"I'm talkin' about now, Pete--this week."

Tolliver wriggled, like a trout on the hook. "What does she say? You
spoke of it to her?"

"Sure. She'll like it fine when she gets her mind used to it. I know how
to handle women, Pete. I'm mentionin' this to you because I want you to
use yore influence. See?"

Pete saw, too well. He moistened his lips with the tip of the tongue.
"Why, I don't reckon I could very well do t