hat. A girl's got to make up
her own mind. She's too young to be figurin' on marryin'. Better give her
time."

"No." Houck flung the word out like an oath. "Now. Right away."

The trapper's voice took on a plaintive note, almost a whine. "You was
sayin' yoreself, Jake, that she'd have to get used to it. Looks like it
wouldn't be good to rush--"

"She can get used to it after we're married."

"O' course I want to do what's right by my li'l' June. You do too for
that matter. We wouldn't either one of us do her a meanness."

"I'm going to marry her," Houck insisted harshly.

"When a girl loses her mother she's sure lost her best friend. It's up to
her paw to see she gets a square deal." There was a quaver of emotion in
Tolliver's voice. "I don't reckon he can make up to her--"

A sound came from Houck's throat like a snarl. "Are you tryin' to tell me
that Pete Tolliver's girl is too good for me? Is that where you're
driftin'?"

"Now don't you get mad, Jake," the older man pleaded. "These here are
different times. I don't want my June mixed up with--with them Brown's
Park days an' all."

"Meanin' me?"

"You're twistin' my words, Jake," the father went on, an anxious desire
to propitiate frowning out of the wrinkled face. "I ain't sayin' a word
against you. I'm explainin' howcome I to feel like I do. Since I--bumped
into that accident in the Park--"

Houck's ill-natured laugh cut the sentence. It was a jangled dissonance
without mirth. "What accident?" he jeered.

"Why--when I got into the trouble--"

"You mean when Jas Stuart caught you rustlin' an' you murdered him an'
went to the pen. That what you mean?" he demanded loudly.

Tolliver caught his sleeve. "S-sh! She don't know a thing about it. You
recollect I told you that."

The other nodded, hard eyes gloating over the rancher's distress. "An' o'
course she don't know you broke jail at Canyon City an' are liable to be
dragged back if any one should happen to whisper to the sheriff."

"Not a thing about all that. I wouldn't holler it out thataway if I was
you, Jake," Tolliver suggested, glancing nervously toward the house.
"Maybe I ought to 'a' told her, but I never did. Her maw died of it, an'
I jes' couldn't make out to tell June. You see yoreself how it would be,
Pete. Her a li'l' trick with nobody but me. I ain't no great shakes, but
at that I'm all she's got. I figured that 'way off here, under another
name, they prob'ly never would find me."

"