not
know you! What has happened? I am so glad to see you! Tell me what
has happened. Are you hurt?"

He stammered like a school-boy. "Nothing has happened. What's this?
Don't cry; nothing at all has happened. I didn't realize what a tramp
I look or I shouldn't have come. But I was only a mile away and I had
heard nothing for four days from Medicine Bend. And how are you? Did
your ride make you ill? No? By Heaven, you are a game girl. That was a
ride! How are they all? Where's your cousin? In town, is he? I thought
I might get some news if I rode up, and oh, Miss Dicksie--jiminy! some
coffee. But I've got only two minutes for it all, only two minutes; do
you think Puss has any on the stove?"

Dicksie with coaxing and pulling got him into the kitchen, and Puss
tumbled over herself to set out coffee and rolls. He showed himself
ravenously hungry, and ate with a simple directness that speedily
accounted for everything in sight. "You have saved my life. Now I am
going, and thank you a thousand times. There, by Heaven, I've
forgotten Wickwire! He is with me--waiting down in the cottonwoods at
the fork. Could Puss put up a lunch I could take to him? He hasn't had
a scrap for twenty-four hours. But, Dicksie, your tramp is a hummer!
I've tried to ride him down and wear him out and lose him, and, by
Heaven, he turns up every time and has been of more use to me than two
men."

She put her hand on Whispering Smith's arm. "I told him if he would
stop drinking he could be foreman here next season." Puss was putting
up the lunch. "Why need you hurry away?" persisted Dicksie. "I've a
thousand things to say."

He looked at her amiably. "This is really a case of must."

"Then, tell me, what favor may I do for you?" She looked appealingly
into his tired eyes. "I want to do something for you. I must! don't
deny me. Only, what shall it be?"

"Something for me? What can I say? You'll be kind to Marion--I
shouldn't have to ask that. What can I ask? Stop! there is one thing.
I've got a poor little devil of an orphan up in the Deep Creek
country. Du Sang murdered his father. You are rich and generous,
Dicksie; do something for him, will you? Kennedy or Bob Scott will
know all about him. Bring him down here, will you, and see he doesn't
go to the dogs? You're a good girl. What's this, crying? Now you are
frightened. Things are not so bad as that. You want to know
everything--I see it in your eyes. Very well, let's trade. You tell me
eve