Myrtle
heard that six-gun of yore's pop!' He never thought one evil thing
about either of us. He just accepted the situation as necessary. Now
the question is, what ought she to have done? Left me to die on that
hillside?"

"Of course not. That's different," protested Beatrice indignantly.

"I don't see it. What she did was more embarrassing for her than what
I did for Kitty. At least it would have been mightily so if she hadn't
used her good hawss sense and forgot that she was a lone young female
and I was a man. That's what I did the other night. Just because
there are seven or eight million human beings here the obligation to
look out for Kitty was no less."

"New York isn't Arizona."

"You bet it ain't. We don't sit roostin' on a fence when folks need
our help out there. We go to it."

"You can't do that sort of thing here. People talk."

"Sure, and hens cackle. Let 'em!"

"There are some things men don't understand," she told him with an acid
little smile of superiority. "When a girl cries a little they think
she's heartbroken. Very likely she's laughing at them up her sleeve.
This girl's making a fool of you, if you want the straight truth."

"I don't think so."

His voice was so quietly confident it nettled her.

"I suppose, then, you think I'm ungenerous," she charged.

The deep-set gray-blue eyes looked at her steadily. There was a wise
little smile in them.

"Is that what you think?" she charged.

"I think you'll be sorry when you think it over."

She was annoyed at her inability to shake him, at the steadfastness
with which he held to his point of view.

"You're trying to put me in the wrong," she flamed. "Well, I won't
have it. That's all. You may take your choice, Mr. Lindsay. Either
send that girl away--give her up--have nothing to do with her, or--"

"Or--?"

"Or please don't come here to see me any more."

He waited, his eyes steadily on her. "Do you sure enough mean that,
Miss Beatrice?"

Her heart sank. She knew she had gone too far, but she was too
imperious to draw back now.

"Yes, that's just what I mean."

"I'm sorry. You're leavin' me no option. I'm not a yellow dog.
Sometimes I'm 'most a man. I'm goin' to do what I think is right."

"Of course," she responded lightly. "If our ideas of what that is
differ--"

"They do."

"It's because we've been brought up differently, I suppose." She
achieved a stifled little yawn behind her hand.

"Y