ng!"

"Yes, downright spying! You've been putting suspicion where it doesn't
belong. Why, everybody believes the Indians did it--everybody but you.
Probably some Indians did it who never have been suspected and never
will be--not the Indians who are under suspicion now."

"That's just about what another party was telling me not long ago--that
I was coddling the Indians and trying to fasten suspicion where it
didn't rightfully belong."

"Who else told you that?"

"No less a person than Bill Talpers."

"There you go again, bringing in that cave man. Why do you keep talking
to me about Talpers? I'm not afraid of him."

Most girls would have been on the verge of hysteria, Lowell thought,
but, while Helen was plainly under a nervous strain, her self-command
returned. The agent was in possession of some information--how much she
did not know. Perhaps she could goad him into betraying the source of
his knowledge.

"I know you're not afraid of Talpers," remarked Lowell, after a pause,
"but at least give me the privilege of being afraid for you. I know Bill
Talpers better than you do."

"What right have you to be afraid for me? I'm of age, and besides, I
have a protector--a guardian--at the ranch."

Lowell was on the point of making some bitter reply about the
undesirability of any guardianship assumed by Willis Morgan, squaw man,
recluse, and recipient of common hatred and contempt. But he kept his
counsel, and remarked, pleasantly:

"My rights are merely those of a neighbor--the right of one neighbor to
help another."

"There are no rights of that sort where the other neighbor isn't asking
any help and doesn't desire it."

"I'm not sure about your not needing it. Anyway, if you don't now, you
may later."

The girl did not answer. The horses were standing close together, heads
drooping lazily. Warm breezes came fitfully from the winds' playground
below. The handkerchief at the girl's neck fluttered, and a strand of
her hair danced and glistened in the sunshine. The graceful lines of her
figure were brought out by her riding-suit. Lowell put his palm over the
gloved hand on her saddle pommel. Even so slight a touch thrilled him.

"If a neighbor has no right to give advice," said Lowell, "let us assume
that my unwelcome offerings have come from a man who is deeply in love
with you. It's no great secret, anyway, as it seems to me that even the
meadow-larks have been singing about it ever since we started on this