ather never permitted you to come in the first place,
and you know it. You made believe that old skate ran away with you
down the trail, and that you couldn't stop him. You've been coming
over to our place ever since, and you never asked old Scotty whether
he would permit it or not. I'm not saying anything about myself, but
it hurts Belle to have you throw her down right now. Under the
circumstances it makes her feel as if you thought we were thieves and
stole your dad's yearling."

"I'm not saying anything like that."

"Maybe you're not, but you sure are acting it. If you don't think
that, why don't you go on taking music lessons from Belle? What made
you stop, all of a sudden?"

"That," said Mary Hope stiffly, "is my own affair, Lance Lorrigan."

"It's mine, let me tell you. It's mine, because it hits Belle; and
what hits her hits me. If you think she isn't good enough for you to
visit, why in thunder have you been coming all this while? She isn't
any worse than she was two months ago, is she?"

"I'm not saying that she is."

"Well, you're acting it, and that's a darn sight worse."

"You ought to know that with all this trouble between your father and
my father--"

"Well, can you tell me when they ever did have any truck together?
Your father doesn't hate our outfit a darn bit worse than he ever
did. He found a chance to knife us, that's all. It isn't that he never
wanted to before."

"I'll thank you, Lance Lorrigan, not to accuse my father of knifing
anybody. He's my father and--"

"And that isn't anything to brag about, if you ask me. I'd rather have
my father doing time for stealing, than have him a darned, hide-bound
old hypocrite that will lie a man into the pen, and then go around and
pull a long face and call himself a Christian!"

"My father doesna lie! And he is not a hypocrite either. If your
father was half as--" She stopped abruptly, her face going red when
she saw Tom sitting on his horse beyond the shoulder of rock,
regarding her with that inscrutable smile which never had failed to
make her squirm mentally and wonder what he thought of her. She stood
up, trembling a little.

Lance turned slowly and met Tom's eyes without flinching. "Hello," he
said, on guard against the two of them, wondering what had brought his
dad to this particular point at this particular time.

"Hello. How d'yuh do, Miss Douglas? Lance, dinner's getting cold
waiting for you." Tom lifted his hat to Mary Hope, turne