u will please me--and win my admiration--if you don't do it.
Please!"

"But I don't want--You'll pardon me?--I don't want to win your
admiration."

What could she say to that? There was a moment of silence.

"When?" she asked quietly.

"I'm waiting for Farrish, my foreman. He's the only man I can
absolutely depend upon. He's in Omaha. He'll be back next week."

"And you won't begin without him?"

"No."

She had no choice but to be satisfied with a few days of grace.
Moreover, something might happen before the return of Farrish; the
outlaw might escape, or she might find another opportunity to plead
with Haig, or--What was she thinking of? Something was going to
happen that very evening; and she had almost forgotten it, in her
absorption!

She had meant to do, long before now, what he had prevented her doing
at the stable,--to confess her deception, to plead for mercy, to beg
him to go back. Failing in that, there was Tuesday trotting behind the
trap; she could leap out, prove to Haig that her foot was uninjured,
and insist upon riding home alone. But now the confession seemed ten
times more difficult than it had seemed in the first flush of her
resolution. They were far up the Brightwater by this time; a few
minutes more would bring them to the branch road that led to
Huntington's. Yet how could she tell him?

"My foot doesn't hurt any more," she began, compromising with her
resolution.

"That's because you've been sitting still," he replied.

"But it doesn't hurt when I move it. See!"

She lifted the foot, and rested it on the dashboard, bending and
twisting it.

"By which you mean to tell me that I am to go back," he said.

"Please!"

"No!" he answered curtly.

"It wasn't badly sprained at all," she persisted. "I was only--" She
caught herself, with a shock. "I was only frightened, I think."

"I don't believe you."

"But it's the truth."

"Then it was not the truth in the first place."

There it was now, her best occasion to come out with it. But no; she
could not.

"It's not so bad as I feared," she stammered.

"I trust not. A sprain is a bad business."

"But you'll go back now!" she pleaded.

"No."

"Oh, why won't you?"

"I've started."

"That's not the reason!" she cried desperately.

"True, there's another reason. That makes two."

"What other reason?"

"I want to ask Huntington about his health."

The deviltry had come back into his voice; and just ahead of them she
s