y ever
since----"

He broke off.

A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?"

"You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver."

"And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quickly
broke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoid
this. Must we thrash it out?"

"You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. I
reckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company with
you."

A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyes
refused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We were
just children."

"Do you mean that everything's all off between us?"

"We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," she
pleaded.

"What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle,
and came toward her eagerly. "I love you--always have since I was
knee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of these
days."

She held up a hand to keep him back. "No--we're not. I know now that
you're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you."

"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted.

She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy
had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace.
She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother.

"No, Tom--let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me
be just a friend."

"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put
off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got
a right to know, and I'm going to know."

"Yes, you have a right--but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I
didn't know my own mind then, and I do now."

"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily.

She was silent.

"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!"

"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart,"
she told him gently.

"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I
shot Weaver?"

"You shot him from ambush."

"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw
him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't
lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to
shoot, and I shot before----"

"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning,
even if it was r