e yielded to his instinct and
took her in his arms.

"Sweetheart!" he murmured against her ear, and it was the first time
he had ever spoken the word to any woman. "You love me, I know it. You
won't say it, but I know you do. I should have felt it this morning if
you hadn't cared. You--you let me kiss you. And--"

"And after that you--you rode off and left me--and you went away by
yourself, just as if--just as if nothing had happened, and you've acted
ever since as if--" She bit her lips, turned her face away from him,
plucked at his hands to free herself from his clasping arms, and then
she laid her face down against him, and sobbed.

Good Indian tried his best to explain his mood and his actions that
day, and if he did not make himself very clear--which could scarcely
be expected, since he did not quite understand it himself--he at least
succeeded in lifting from her the weight of doubt and of depression.

They were astonished when Wally and Jack and Miss Georgie suddenly
confronted them and proved, by the number of fish which they carried,
that they had been gone longer than ten minutes or so. They were red as
to their faces, and embarrassed as to manner, and Good Indian went away
hurriedly after the horses, without meeting the quizzical glances of the
boys, or replying t to certain pointed remarks which they fired after
him.

"And he's the buckaroo that's got no use for girls!" commented Wally,
looking after him, and ran his tongue meditatively along the loose edge
of his cigarette. "Kid, I wish you'd tell me how you done it. It worked
quick, anyhow."

"And thorough," grinned Jack. "I was thinking some of falling in love
with you myself, Vad. Soon as some of the shine wore off, and you got so
you acted like a real person."

"I saw it coming, when it first heaved in sight," chirped Miss Georgie,
in a more cheerful tone than she had used that day; in too cheerful a
tone to be quite convincing, if any one there had been taking notice of
mere tones.

CHAPTER XIV. THE CLAIM-JUMPERS

"Guess that bobcat was after my ducks again, last night," commented
Phoebe Hart, when she handed Baumberger his cup of coffee. "The way the
dogs barked all night--didn't they keep you awake?"

"Never slept better in my life," drawled Baumberger, his voice sliding
upward from the first word to the last. His blood-shot eyes, however,
rather gave the lie to his statement. "I'm going to make one more try,
'long about noon, for th