d, almost dismayed, Ruth held her off and tried to
look at her face. But the girl only buried it deeper and continued to
cry.

"Why, Hagar; whatever is the matter?"

There was no answer, and after holding her for a time, Ruth succeeded in
getting a look at her face. It was tear-stained, but dogged in
expression, and had Ruth been experienced in reading the human emotions,
she could have seen the guilt in the girl's eyes, lurking far back. She
also might have seen the determination in them--a determination not to
tell her secret. And a sorrow, also, was there--aroused through the
thought that she had deceived Ruth, and could not tell her.

Hagar realized now that she had permitted her emotions to carry her too
far, that she had aroused Ruth's curiosity. Ruth must never know! She
made an effort and sat up, laughing grimly through her tears, shaking her
hair back from her eyes, brushing it away fiercely.

"Dad says there's times when I'm half loco," she said. "I reckon he's
right." She recovered her composure rapidly, and in a few minutes there
were no traces of tears or of mental distress. But Ruth was puzzled, and
after she left the cabin she tried in vain to provide an explanation for
the girl's strange conduct.

On her next visit to the cabin, Ruth was astonished when Hagar asked her
bluntly:

"Ain't there no punishment for men who deceive girls?"

"Very little, Hagar, I fear--unless it is God's punishment."

"Shucks!" The girl's eyes flashed vindictively. "There ought to be. Durn
'em, anyway!"

"Hagar, what has brought such a subject into your mind?" said Ruth
wonderingly.

The girl reddened, but met Ruth's eyes determinedly. "I've got a book in
here, that dad got with some other traps from ol' man Cullen's girls,
back in Red Rock--they thought we was poorly, an' they helped us
that-a-way. It's 'Millie's Lovers,' an' it tells how a man deceived a
girl, an' run away an' left her--the sneakin' coyote!"

"Girls shouldn't read such books, Hagar."

"Yes, they ought to. But it ought to tell in 'em how to get even with the
men who do things like that!" She frowned as she looked at Ruth. "What
would you think of a man that done that in real life?"

"I should think that he wouldn't be much of a man," said Ruth.

As before, Ruth departed from this visit, puzzled and wondering.

On another morning, a few days following Ruth's discovery of the shooting
of Kelso, she found Hagar standing on the porch. The dog had