them down and tromped on them and put them out of
business," agreed Dingwell dryly.

The eyes of the little Irishman twinkled. "Brad Charlton is giving it
out that it was an accident."

"That's what I'd call it, too, if I was Brad," assented the cattleman
with a grin. "But if we could persuade Roy to put over about one more
accident like that, I reckon Huerfano Park would let him alone."

"While Jess Tighe is living?"

Dingwell fell grave. "I'd forgotten Tighe. No, I expect the kid had
better keep his weather eye peeled as long as that castor-oil smile of
Jess is working."

Chapter XVIII

Rutherford Answers Questions

Beulah Rutherford took back with her to Huerfano Park an almost
intolerable resentment against the conditions of her life. She had the
family capacity for sullen silence, and for weeks a kind of despairing
rage simmered in her heart. She was essentially of a very direct,
simple nature, clear as Big Creek where it tumbled down from the top of
the world toward the foothills. An elemental honesty stirred in her.
It was necessary to her happiness that she keep her own self-respect
and be able to approve those she loved.

Just now she could do neither. The atmosphere of the ranch seemed to
stifle her. When she rode out into a brave, clean world of sunshine,
the girl carried her shame along. Ever since she could remember,
outlaws and miscreants had slipped furtively about the suburbs of her
life. The Rutherfords themselves were a hard and savage breed. To
their door had come more than one night rider flying for his life, and
Beulah had accepted the family tradition of hospitality to those at
odds with society.

A fierce, untamed girl of primitive instincts, she was the heritor of
the family temperament. But like threads of gold there ran through the
warp of her being a fineness that was her salvation. She hated
passionately cruelty and falsehood and deceit. All her life she had
walked near pitch and had never been defiled.

Hal Rutherford was too close to her not to feel the estrangement of her
spirit. He watched her anxiously, and at last one morning he spoke.
She was standing on the porch waiting for Jeff to bring Blacky when
Rutherford came out and put his arm around her shoulder.

"What is it, honey?" he asked timidly.

"It's--everything," she answered, her gaze still on the distant hills.

"You haven't quarreled with Brad?"

"No--and I'm not likely to if he'll let me