some
money, an' he's goin' to help Abe to fix up his place. He asked my
pardon, for settin' Pickett an' Kelso on me. I shook his hand, Ruth, an'
wished him luck an' happiness. Don't you wish him the same, Ruth--both of
them?"

"Yes," she said earnestly; "I do!" And now she was looking at him with
luminous eyes. "But it was very manly of you to forgive him so fully!"

"I reckon it wasn't so awful manly," he returned, blushing. "There wasn't
nothin' else to do, I expect. Would you have me hold a grudge against
him? An' spoil everything--nature's plan included? It was to happen that
way, an' I ain't interferin'. Why, I reckon if I wasn't to forgive him,
there'd be another plan spoiled--yours an' mine. An' I'm sure helpin' to
work that out. I've thought of the first of the month," he said, looking
at her, expectantly, and speaking lowly. "The justice of the peace will
be back in Lazette then."

"So you've been inquiring?" she said, her face suffused with color.

"Why, sure! Somebody's got to do it. It's my job."

A little later they mounted their ponies and rode along the edge of the
timber. When they reached the tree to which he had tied her pony on the
night she had hurt her ankle, he called her attention to it.

"That's where I lost the bandanna," he told her. "It fell off my neck an'
got tangled in the knot."

"Then you know!" she exclaimed.

"Sure," he said, grinning; "Uncle Jepson told me."

"I think Uncle Jep has been your right hand man all through this," she
charged.

"Why shouldn't he be?" he retorted. And she could give him no reason why
it should have been otherwise.

"It was a rather mean trick to play on me," she charged pretending
indignation.

"If you'd have thought it mean, you'd have told me about it before now,"
he answered. "Patches was reliable."

"Kester an' Linton have sloped," he told her as they rode away from the
trees. "This climate was gettin' unhealthy for them."

"What makes folks act so foolish?" he questioned, later. "There ain't no
way to escape what's got to be. Why can't folks take their medicine
without makin' faces?"

She knew he referred to Masten, Chavis and Pickett, and she knew that
this would be all the reference Randerson would ever make to them. But no
answer formed in her mind and she kept silent.

When they came to the rock upon which he had found her, he halted and
regarded it gravely.

"You had me scared that night," he said. "Patches had most run his he