t here
to say good-bye, rode out and held him up! But I did not reckon anyone
would try to insult him for it!"

Her stepfather regarded her grimly. She was angry, and very near to
tears.

"Time you had your breakfast," he observed, "and all signs indicate I
should have sent you East last year, and kept you out of the
promiscuous mixups along the border. It's the dumping ground for all
sorts of stray adventurers, and no place for a girl to ride alone."

"He seemed to think I am as able to look after myself as you," she
retorted. "You aren't fair to him because you take the word of Conrad,
but Conrad lies, and I'm glad he got thrashed good and plenty! Now
I've got that off my mind, I'll go eat a cheerful breakfast."

Singleton walked silent beside her back to where his horse was grazing
by the roadside.

"Huh!" grunted the girl with frank scorn. "So you got out of the
saddle to spy? Haven't you some black-and-tan around the ranch to do
your dirty work?"

"It's just as well to be civil till you know what you are talking
about," he reminded her with a sort of trained patience. "I came out
without my breakfast just to keep the ranchmen from thinking what Tia
Luz thinks. She told me I'd find that fellow waiting for you. I didn't
believe it, but I see she is not so far wrong."

He spoke without heat or feeling, and his tone was that of quiet
discussion with a man or boy, not at all that of a guardian to a girl.
His charge was evidently akin to the horse ranch of Granados as
described by the old ranger: Singleton had acquired them, but never
understood them.

"Look here," said his protegee with boyish roughness, "that Dutchman
sees everything crooked, especially if there's an American in range,
and he prejudices you. Why don't you wake up long enough to notice
that he's framing some excuse to run off every decent chap who comes
on the place? I knew Rhodes was too white to be let stay. I saw that
as soon as he landed, and I told him so! What I can't understand is
that you won't see it."

"A manager has to have a free hand, Billie, or else be let go,"
explained Singleton. "Conrad knows horses, he knows the market, and is
at home with the Mexicans. Also he costs less than we used to pay, and
that is an item in a bad year."

"I'll bet we lose enough cattle to his friends to make up the
difference," she persisted. "Rhodes was right when he called them a
rotten bunch."

"Let us hope that when you return from school yo