?"

"Grass!" echoed Lance.

"Yes, there," pointing to the yerba buena.

Lance laughed. "I was hungry. Look!" he said, gayly tossing some silver
into the air. "Do you think you could get me some breakfast for that,
and have enough left to buy something for yourself?"

The girl eyed the money and the man with half-bashful curiosity.

"I reckon Dad might give ye suthing if he had a mind ter, though ez a
rule he's down on tramps ever since they run off his chickens. Ye might
try."

"But I want _you_ to try. You can bring it to me here."

The girl retreated a step, dropped her eyes, and, with a smile that was
a charming hesitation between bashfulness and impudence, said: "So you
_are_ hidin', are ye?"

"That's just it. Your head's level. I am," laughed Lance unconcernedly.

"Yur ain't one o' the McCarthy gang--are ye?"

Mr. Lance Harriott felt a momentary moral exaltation in declaring
truthfully that he was not one of a notorious band of mountain
freebooters known in the district under that name.

"Nor ye ain't one of them chicken lifters that raided Henderson's
ranch? We don't go much on that kind o' cattle yer."

"No," said Lance, cheerfully.

"Nor ye ain't that chap ez beat his wife unto death at Santa Clara?"

Lance honestly scorned the imputation. Such conjugal ill treatment as
he had indulged in had not been physical, and had been with other men's
wives.

There was a moment's further hesitation on the part of the girl. Then
she said shortly:

"Well, then, I reckon you kin come along with me."

"Where?" asked Lance.

"To the ranch," she replied simply.

"Then you won't bring me anything to eat here?"

"What for? You kin get it down there." Lance hesitated. "I tell you
it's all right," she continued. "I'll make it all right with Dad."

"But suppose I reckon I'd rather stay here," persisted Lance, with a
perfect consciousness, however, of affectation in his caution.

"Stay away then," said the girl coolly; "only as Dad perempted this yer
woods"--

"_Pre_-empted," suggested Lance.

"Per-empted or pre-emp-ted, as you like," continued the girl
scornfully,--"ez he's got a holt on this yer woods, ye might ez well
see him down thar ez here. For here he's like to come any minit. You
can bet your life on that."

She must have read Lance's amusement in his eyes, for she again dropped
her own with a frown of brusque embarrassment. "Come along, then; I'm
your man," said Lance, gayly, extending his ha