could, ma'am. Anyway, we can
try it, if you want to."

He led Patches still closer. Then, with much care, he lifted Ruth and
placed her in the saddle, mounting behind her. Patches moved off.

After a silence which might have lasted while they rode a mile, Ruth
spoke.

"My ankle feels very much easier."

"I'm glad of that, ma'am."

"Randerson," she said, after they had gone on a little ways further; "I
beg your pardon for speaking to you the way I did, back there. But my
foot _did_ hurt terribly."

"Why, sure. I expect I deserved to get roasted."

Again there was a silence. Ruth seemed to be thinking deeply. At a
distance that he tried to keep respectful, Randerson watched her, with
worshipful admiration, noting the graceful disorder of her hair, the
wisps at the nape of her neck. The delicate charm of her made him thrill
with the instinct of protection. So strong was this feeling that when he
thought of her pony, back at the timber, guilt ceased to bother him.

Ruth related to him the conversation she had overheard between Chavis and
Kester, and he smiled understandingly at her.

"Do you reckon you feel as tender toward them now as you did before you
found that out?"

"I don't know," she replied. "It made me angry to hear them talk like
that. But as for hanging them--" She shivered. "There were times,
tonight, though, when I thought hanging would be too good for them," she
confessed.

"You'll shape up real western--give you time," he assured. "You'll be
ready to take your own part, without dependin' on laws to do it for
you--laws that don't reach far enough."

"I don't think I shall ever get your viewpoint," she declared.

"Well," he said, "Pickett was bound to try to get me. Do you think that
if I'd gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an' told him about Pickett, he'd
have done anything but poke fun at me? An' that word would have gone all
over the country--that I was scared of Pickett--an' I'd have had to pull
my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma'am. Mebbe I'd have been a hero
if I'd have let him shoot me, but I wouldn't have been here any more to
know about it. An' I'm plumb satisfied to be here, ma'am."

"How did you come to hear about me not getting home?" she asked.

"I'd rode in to see Catherson. I couldn't see him--because he wasn't
there. Then I come on over to the ranchhouse, an' Uncle Jepson told me
about you not comin' in."

"Was Mr. Masten at the ranchhouse?"

He hesitated. Then he sp