happier being called a partner."

"Very well--we'll let it go that way."

Thereafter her manner changed. She was more thoughtful; she looked at
him with softer eyes. It seemed to her very wonderful, this friendship
between a rough, big man and her brother, who had always been something
of a scapegrace at home. Her own regard for Kelley deepened. "Men aren't
such brutes, after all."

Her smile was less mocking, her jests less pointed, as she sat at Mrs.
Finnegan's long table and ate boiled beef and cabbage and drank the
simmered hay which they called tea. She was opposite Kelley this time,
and could study him to better advantage.

Kelley, on his part, was still very uneasy. The girl's uncanny
penetration had pressed so clearly to the heart of his secret that he
feared the hours which remained. "I'm at the end of my rope," he
inwardly admitted. "She'll catch me sure unless I can get away from
her."

Nevertheless, he wondered a little and was a trifle chagrined when the
girl suddenly turned from him to her brother. He was a little uneasy
thereat, for he was certain she would draw from the youngster some
admissions that would lead to a full confession.

As a matter of fact, she sought her brother's knowledge of Kelley. "Tell
me about him, Fred. Where did you meet him first? He interests me."

"Well," Morse answered, cautiously, "I don't know exactly. I used to see
him come down the hill of an evening after his mail, and I kind of took
a shine to him and he did to me. At least that's what he said afterward.
He has had a wonderful career. He's been all over Arizona and New Mexico
alone. He's been arrested for a bandit and almost killed as city
marshal, and he has been associated with a band of cattle-rustlers. Oh,
you should get him talking. He nearly died of thirst in the desert once,
and a snake bit him in the Navajo country, and he lay sick for weeks in
a Hopi town."

"What a singular life! Is he satisfied with it?"

"He says he is. He declares he is never so happy as when he is leading a
pack-horse across the range."

"I don't wonder you like him," she said, thoughtfully. "But you should
do your part. Don't let him be always the giver and you the taker. I'm
afraid you shirk on him a little, Fred."

"Why? What makes you think that?"

"Well, your hands are pretty soft for a working miner."

He met her attack bravely. "You don't suppose we do all the pick work in
the mine, do you?"

"No. I don't see how you