was speaking in slow measured words.
"They all do--me along with the rest. But, I ain't drinkin' now."

CHAPTER XI

AT THE MOUTH OF THE COULEE

The girl's eyes flashed a swift glance into his, and once more raised to
the bandage that encircled his head, then, very abruptly, she turned her
back toward him, and busied herself at the stove. A plate of sizzling
bacon and a steaming cup of coffee were whisked onto the table and, as
the cowboy seated himself, she made up a neat flat package of
sandwiches.

As Tex washed down the bacon and bread with swallows of scalding coffee,
she slipped into an adjoining room and closed the door. Just as he
finished she reappeared, booted and spurred, clad in a short riding
skirt of corduroy, her hands encased in gauntleted gloves, and a Stetson
set firmly upon the black coiled braids. A silk scarf of a peculiar
burnt orange hue was knotted loosely about her neck.

Never in the world, thought the man as his eyes rested for a moment upon
the soft, full throat that rose from the open collar of her shirt, had
there been such absolute perfection of womanhood; and his glance
followed the lithe, swift movements with which she caught up the package
of lunch and stepped to the door. "I'm going with you," she announced.
"Father's up at the lambing camp, and I've fed all the little beasties."
A lamb tumbled awkwardly about her legs and she cuffed it playfully.

As the Texan followed her to the corral, his thoughts flashed to Alice
Endicott lying as he had left her beside the river--flashed backward to
the moment of their first meeting, to the wild trip through the bad
lands, to their parting a year ago when she had left him to become the
bride of his rival, to the moment she had appeared as an apparition back
there in the saloon, and to the incidents of their wild adventure on the
flat-boat. Only last night, it was--and it seemed ages ago.

Thoughts of her made him strangely uncomfortable, and he swore softly
under his breath, as his glance rested upon the girl who had stooped to
release a rope from a saddle that lay beside the corral gate. She coiled
it deftly, and stepping into the enclosure, flipped the noose over the
head of a roman-nosed roan. The Texan stared. There had been no whirling
of the rope, only a swift, sure throw, and the loop fastened itself
about the horse's throat close under his chin. The cowboy stepped to
relieve her of the rope, but she motioned him to the other