njudicious Ajax.

"Nothing of the sort," retorted Jim. "I mean," he added, "that Thorpe
appeals to--er--mature women. I know for a fact that the wife of a
baronet is head over ears in love with him."

"I hope he didn't tell you so," said Ajax.

"I should think not. First and last he's a gentleman."

During the next few weeks we had abundant opportunity of testing this
assertion, for Thorpe was kind enough to consume much of our time and
provisions. He bought himself a smart pony, and, very accurately
turned out, would canter down to the ranch-house three or four times a
week.

"There's nothing to learn up there," he explained.

It is fair to add that he helped us on the range, and exhibited
aptitude in the handling of cattle and horses.

Meanwhile, his advent had made an enormous difference to the
Mistertons. Jim fetched a hired girl from town, and Angela was
relieved, during a scorching summer, of a housewife's most intolerable
duties. Also, when Jim was hard at work clearing his brush-hills,
wrestling with refractory roots of chaparral and manzanita, his
greatest pal was kind enough to undertake the entertainment of Angela.
The pair rode about together, and Jim told us that it did his heart
good to see how the little woman had brightened up. Thorpe, for his
part, admitted with becoming modesty that he was most awfully sorry
for his friend's wife.

"My heart bleeds for her," he told Ajax.

"The bounder with the bleeding heart," said Ajax to me that same
evening.

"We don't know that he is a bounder," I objected.

"He bounds, and he is as unconscious of his bounds as a kangaroo. As
for Jim, he is the apex of the world's pyramid of fools."

"Angela can take care of herself."

"Can she?"

At our fall round-up, Ajax's question was answered. Conspicuously
Angela attached herself to Tomlinson-Thorpe, regardless of the gaping
eyes and mouths of neighbours, Puritan to the backbone in everything
except the stealing of unbranded calves.

Most unfortunately, Thorpe--I think more kindly of him when I don't
give him his double-barrelled name--was daily exhibiting those
qualities which had carried him through scrums. In a bar-room brawl
with two pot-valiant cowboys, he had come out supremely "on top." They
had jeered at his riding-breeches, at his bob-tailed cob, at his
English accent, and Thorpe had suffered them gladly. Then, quite
suddenly, Angela's name fell upon a silence. As suddenly Thorpe seized
both men