ot to blame, Dad. He
can't help it because he doesn't see how despicable a thing he has done."

Again the blood rushed to the face of the sheepman. "I reckon that will
hold me hitched for the present, Miss Cullison. In the meantime I'll go
file that homestead entry of mine. Nothing like living up to the opinion
your friends have of you."

He wheeled away abruptly, but as he went out of the door one word came to
him.

"Friends!" Kate had repeated, and her voice told fully the contempt she
felt.

At exactly two o'clock Dominguez set the Cullisons on the homeward road.
He fairly dripped apologies for the trouble to which he and his friends
had been compelled to put them.

Blackwell, who had arrived to take his turn as guard, stood in the doorway
and sulkily watched them go.

[Illustration: SHE WAS THANKING GOD THE AFFAIR WAS ENDED]

From the river bed below the departing guests looked up at the cabin
hidden in the pines. The daughter was thanking God in her heart that the
affair was ended. Her father was vowing to himself that it had just
begun.

CHAPTER XII

AN ARREST

After half a week in the saddle Lieutenant Bucky O'Connor of the Arizona
Rangers and Curly Flandrau reached Saguache tired and travel-stained. They
had combed the Rincons without having met hide or hair of the men they
wanted. Early next morning they would leave town again and this time would
make for Soapy Stone's horse ranch.

Bucky O'Connor was not disheartened. Though he was the best man hunter in
Arizona, it was all in the day's work that criminals should sometimes
elude him. But with Curly the issue was a personal one. He owed Luck
Cullison a good deal and his imagination had played over the picture of
that moment when he could go to Kate and tell her he had freed her
father.

After reaching town the first thing each of them did was to take a bath,
the second to get shaved. From the barber shop they went to the best
restaurant in Saguache. Curly was still busy with his pie _a la mode_ when
Burridge Thomas, United States Land Commissioner for that district, took
the seat opposite and told to O'Connor a most interesting piece of news.

They heard him to an end without interruption. Then Curly spoke one word.
"Fendrick."

"Yes, sir, Cass Fendrick. Came in about one o'clock and handed me the
relinquishment just as I've been telling you."

"Then filed on the claim himself, you said."

"Yes, took it up himself."

"Sure the si