nstantly declared. "But you'd have to ride
a horse the last ten miles."

"Couldn't do it, Joe," she sighed. "These last few days I've been about as
boneless as an eel. Funny the way a fellow keeps going when he's got
something to do that has to be done. I'll tell you what, if you want to
take me and Lee up to Sulphur, I'll go ye."

"Sure thing. What day?"

"Not for a day or two. I'm not quite up to it just now; but by Saturday
I'll be saddle-wise again."

Joe turned joyously to Lee. "That will be great! Won't you come out for a
spin this minute?"

For a moment Lee was tempted. Anything to get away from this horrible
little den and the people who infested it was her feeling, but she
distrusted Gregg, and she knew that every eye in the town would be upon
her if she went, and, besides, Ross might return while she was away. "No,
not to-day," she replied, finally; but her voice was gentler than it had
ever been to him.

The young fellow was moved to explain his position to Lize. "You don't
think much of me, and I don't blame you. I haven't been much use so far,
but I'm going to reform. If I had a girl like Lee Virginia to live up to,
I'd make a great citizen. I don't lay my arrest up against Cavanagh. I'm
ready to pass that by. And as for this other business--this free-range war
in which the old man is mixed up--I want you to know that I'm against it.
Dad knows his day is short; that's what makes him so hot. But he's a
bluff--just a fussy old bluff. He knows he has no more right to the
Government grass than anybody else, but he's going to get ahead of the
cattle-men if he can."

"Does he know who burned them sheep-herders?"

"Of course he knows, but ain't going to say so. You see, that old Basque
who was killed was a monopolist, too. He went after that grass without
asking anybody's leave; moreover, he belonged to that Mexican-Dago outfit
that everybody hates. The old man isn't crying over that job; it's money
in his pocket. All the same it's too good a chance to put the hooks into
the cattle-men, hence his offering a reward, and it looks as if something
would really be done this time. They say Neill Ballard was mixed up in it,
and that old guy that showed me the sheep, but I don't take much stock in
that. Whoever did it was paid by the cattle-men, sure thing." The young
fellow's tone and bearing made a favorable impression upon Lize. She had
never seen this side of him, for the reason that he had hitherto treated