f trouble while he was
here, anyway, wasn't he?"

"No," she said quickly, defiantly; "he--" She broke off and looked at
him with wide eyes. "Oh," she said with a quavering laugh; "you are
poking fun at me. You liked him, too; you told me you did!"

"I reckon I like him," said Toban, his lips grimming; "I like him well
enough not to let him pull his freight on account of the Taggarts.
Why, damn it!" he added explosively; "I was his father's friend, an' I
ain't seein' him lose everything he's got here when he's innocent.
Which way did he go?"

There was a wild hope in her eyes; she was breathing fast. "Oh," she
said; "are you going after him? He went to the Arrow--first. He told
me he was going to kill the Taggarts. Then he is going to get out of
the Territory. Oh, Toban, catch him--please! I--"

Toban laughed. "I ain't been blind, girl," he said; "the talks I've
had with you in old Marston's office have wised me up to how things
stand between you an' him. I'll ketch him, don't worry about that.
That black horse of his is some horse, but he ain't got nothin' on my
old dust-thrower, an' I reckon that in fifteen miles--"

He was climbing into the saddle while talking, and at his last word he
gave the spurs to his horse, a strong, clean-limbed bay, and was away
in a cloud of dust.

Betty watched him, her hands clasped over her breast, her body rigid
and tense, her eyes straining, until she saw him vanish around the bend
in the trail; and then for a long time she stood on the porch, scanning
the distant horizon, in the hope that she might again see Toban and be
assured that nothing had happened to him. And when at last she saw a
speck moving swiftly along a distant rise, she murmured a prayer and
went into the house.

When she closed the kitchen door and stood against it, looking around
the room, she was afflicted with a depressing sense of loss, and she
realized fully how Calumet had grown into her life, and what it would
mean to her if she lost him. He had been mean, cruel, and vicious, but
he had awakened at last to a sense of his shortcomings; he was like a
boy who had had no training, who had grown wild and ungovernable, but
who, before it had become too late, had awakened to the futility, the
absurdity, the falseness of it all, and was determined to begin anew.
And she felt--as she had felt all along--even when she had seen him at
his worst--that she must mother him, must help him to build up a new