you like yore aigs sunny side up or turned?"

"Either way. Whichever you like, Mr. Green."

"You're eatin' them," Johnnie reminded her with a grin.

"On one side, then, please. Mr. Lindsay says you're a fine cook."

"Sho! I'm no great shakes. Clay he jes' brags on me."

"Lemme eat here in the kitchen. Then you won't have to set the table
in the other room," she said.

The puncher's instinct was to make a spread on the dining-table for
her, but it came to him with a flash of insight that it would be wise
to let her eat in the kitchen. She would feel more as though she
belonged and was not a guest of an hour.

While she ate he waited on her solicitously. Inside, he was a river of
tears for her, but with it went a good deal of awe. Even now, wan-eyed
and hollow-cheeked, she was attractive. In Johnnie's lonesome life he
had never before felt so close to a girl as he did to this one.
Moreover, for the first time he felt master of the situation. It was
his business to put their guest at her ease. That was what Clay had
told him to do before he left.

"You're the doctor, ma'am. You'll eat where you say."

"I--I don't like to be so much bother to you," she said again. "Maybe
I can go away this afternoon."

"No, ma'am, we won't have that a-tall," broke in the range-rider in
alarm. "We're plumb tickled to have you here. Clay he feels thataway
too."

"I could keep house for you while I stay," she suggested timidly. "I
know how to cook--and the place does need cleaning."

"Sure it does. Say, wha's the matter with you bein' Clay's sister,
jes' got in last night on the train? Tha's the story we'll put up to
the landlord if you'll gimme the word."

"I never had a brother, but if I'd had one I'd 'a' wanted him to be
like Mr. Lindsay," she told his friend.

"Say, ain't he a go-getter?" cried Johnnie eagerly. "Clay's sure one
straight-up son-of-a-gun. You'd ought to 'a' seen how he busted New
York open to find you."

"Did he?"

Johnnie told the story of the search with special emphasis on the night
Clay broke into three houses in answer to her advertisement.

"I never wrote it. I never thought of that. It must have been--"

"It was that scalawag Durand, y'betcha. I ain't still wearin' my
pinfeathers none. Tha's who it was. I'm not liable to forget him. He
knocked me hell-west and silly whilst I wasn't lookin'. He was sore
because Clay had fixed his clock proper."

"So you've fought on ac