d crowd. They
was wild, an' they rustled more or less. In them days there was a good
many sleepers an' mavericks on the range. I expect we used a running-iron
right smart when we wasn't sure whose calf it was."

He was trying to put the best face on the story. June could see that, and
her heart hardened toward him. She ignored the hungry appeal for mercy in
his eyes.

"You mean you stole cattle. Is that it?" She was willing to hurt herself
if she could give him pain. Had he not ruined her life?

"Well, I--I--Yes, I reckon that's it. Our crowd picked up calves that
belonged to the big outfits like the Diamond Slash. We drove 'em up to
Brown's Park, an' later acrost the line to Wyoming or Utah."

"Was Jake Houck one of your crowd?"

Pete hesitated.

She cut in, with a flare of childish ferocity. "I'm gonna know the truth.
He's not protecting you any."

"Yes. Jake was one of us. I met up with him right soon after I come to
Colorado."

"And Purdy?"

"Tha's the name I was passin' under. I'd worked back in Missouri for a
fellow of that name. They got to callin' me Pete Purdy, so I kinda let it
go. My father's name was Tolliver, though. I took it--after the
trouble."

"What trouble?"

"It come after I was married. I met yore maw at Rawlins. She was workin'
at the railroad restaurant waitin' on table. For a coupla years we lived
there, an' I wish to God we'd never left. But Jake persuaded 'Lindy I'd
ought to take up land, so we moved back to the Park an' I preempted.
Everything was all right at first. You was born, an' we was right happy.
But Jake kep' a-pesterin' me to go in with him an' do some cattle runnin'
on the quiet. There was money in it--pretty good money--an' yore maw was
sick an' needed to go to Denver. Jake, he advanced the money, an' o'
course I had to work in with him to pay it back. I was sorta driven to
it, looks like."

He stopped to mop a perspiring face with a bandanna. Tolliver was not
enjoying himself.

"You haven't told me yet what the trouble was," June said.

"Well, this fellow Jas Stuart was a stock detective. He come down for the
Cattlemen's Association to find out who was doing the rustlin' in Brown's
Park. You see, the Park was a kind of a place where we holed up. There
was timbered gulches in there where we could drift cattle in an' hide
'em. Then there was the Hole-in-the-Wall. I expect you've heard of that
too."

"Did this Stuart find out who was doing the rustlin'?"

"He w