"It's a lie."

He waved his hand airily, as one who declined responsibility in the
matter, but his dark, saturnine face sparkled with malice.

"Maybe so. Seems to be some evidence, but I reckon he can explain that
away--when he comes back. The hold-up dropped a hat with the initials
L. C. in the band, since identified as his. He had lost a lot of money at
poker. Next day he paid it. He had no money in the bank, but maybe he
found it growing on a cactus bush."

"You liar!" she panted, eyes blazing.

"I'll take that from you, my dear, because you look so blamed pretty when
you're mad; but I wouldn't take it from him--from your father, who is
hiding out in the hills somewhere."

Anger uncurbed welled from her in an inarticulate cry. He had come close
to her, and was standing beside the stirrup, one bold hand upon the rein.
Her quirt went swiftly up and down, cut like a thin bar of red-hot iron
across his uplifted face. He stumbled back, half blind with the pain.
Before he could realize what had happened the spur on her little boot
touched the side of the pony, and it was off with a bound. She was
galloping wildly down the trail toward home.

He looked after her, fingers caressing the welt that burned his cheek.

"You'll pay for that, Kate Cullison," he said aloud to himself.

Anger stung him, but deeper than his rage was a growing admiration. How
she had lashed out at him because he had taunted her of her father. By
Jove, a girl like that would be worth taming! His cold eyes glittered as
he put the bloodstained kerchief in his pocket. She was not through with
him yet--not by a good deal.

CHAPTER V

"AIN'T SHE THE GAMEST LITTLE THOROUGHBRED?"

Kate galloped into the ranch plaza around which the buildings were set,
slipped from her pony, and ran at once to the telephone. Bob was on a side
porch mending a bridle.

"Have you heard anything from dad?" she cried through the open door.

"Nope," he answered, hammering down a rivet.

Kate called up the hotel where Maloney was staying at Saguache, but could
not get him. She tried the Del Mar, where her father and his friends
always put up when in town. She asked in turn for Mackenzie, for Yesler,
for Alec Flandrau.

While she waited for an answer, the girl moved nervously about the room.
She could not sit down or settle herself at anything. For some instinct
told her that Fendrick's taunt was not a lie cut out of whole cloth.

The bell rang. Instantly