to be good
news, when I left home. But now, it's just a part of the black tangle
that life's made up of. Aunt Ella started things off by telling me
what a disgrace it is for me to work in these pictures. And Uncle
Carl--" She shivered in spite of herself. "I just can't understand
Uncle Carl's going into such a rage. It was--awful."

Lite rode for some distance before he lifted his head or spoke. Then
he looked at Jean, who was staring straight ahead and seeing nothing
save what her thoughts pictured.

He did not say a word about her going to Los Angeles.

He was the bottled-up type; the things that hit him hardest he seldom
mentioned, so by that rule it might be inferred that her going hit
hard. But his voice was normally calm, and his tone was the tone of
authority, which Jean knew very well, and which nearly always amused
her because she firmly believed it to be utterly useless.

He said in the tone of an ultimatum: "If you're bound to stay at the
ranch, you've got to have somebody with you. I'll ride in and get
Hepsy Atwood in the morning. You're getting thin. I don't believe you
take time to cook enough to eat. You can't work on soda crackers and
sardines. The old lady won't charge much to come and stay with you.
I'll come over after I'm through work to-morrow and help her get things
looking a little more like living."

"You'll do nothing of the sort." Jean looked at him mutinously. "I'm
all right just as I am. I won't have her, Lite. That's settled."

"Sure, it's settled," Lite agreed, with more than his usual
pertinacity. "I'll have her out here by noon, and a supply of real
grub. How are you fixed for bedding?"

"I won't have her, I tell you. You're always trying to make me do
things I won't do. Don't be silly."

"Sure not." Lite shifted in the saddle with the air of a man who rides
at perfect ease with himself and with the world. "She'll likely have
plenty of bedding of her own," he meditated, after a brief silence.

"Lite, if you haul Hepsibah out here, I'll send her back!"

"I'll haul her out," said Lite in a tone of finality, "but you won't
send her back." He paused. "She ain't much protection, maybe," he
remarked somewhat enigmatically, "but it'll beat staying alone nights.
You--you can't tell who might come prowling around the place."

"What do you mean? Do you know about--" Jean caught herself on the
verge of betrayal.

"You want to keep your gun handy. Just on gen