. He looked at Kate but rarely,
yet he was aware of her all the time. At his ranch a Mexican did the
cooking in haphazard fashion. The food was ill prepared and worse served.
He ate only because it was a necessity, and he made as short a business of
it as he could. Here were cut roses on a snowy tablecloth, an air of
leisure that implied the object of dinner to be something more than to
devour a given quantity of food. Moreover, the food had a flavor that made
it palatable. The rib roast was done to a turn, the mashed potatoes
whipped to a flaky lightness. The vegetable salad was a triumph, and the
rice custard melted in his mouth.

Presently a young man came into the dining room and sat down beside Kate.
He looked the least in the world surprised at sight of the sheepman.

"Mornin', Cass," he nodded

"Morning, Curly," answered Fendrick. "Didn't know you were riding for the
Circle C."

"He's my foreman," Luck explained.

Cass observed that he was quite one of the family. Bob admired him openly
and without shame, because he was the best rider in Arizona; Kate seemed
to be on the best of terms with him, and Luck treated him with the offhand
bluffness he might have used toward a grown son.

If Cass had, in his bitter, sardonic fashion, been interested in Kate
before he sat down, the feeling had quickened to something different
before he rose. It was not only that she was competent to devise such a
meal in the desert. There was something else. She had made a _home_ for
her father and cousin at the Circle C. The place radiated love,
domesticity, kindly good fellowship. The casual give and take of the
friendly talk went straight to the heart of the sheepman. This was living.
It came to him poignantly that in his scramble for wealth he had missed
that which was of far greater importance.

The stage brought the two men to town shortly after sundown. Luck called
up O'Connor, and made an appointment to meet him after supper.

"Back again, Bucky," Fendrick grinned at sight of the ranger. "I hear I'm
suspected of being a bad hold-up."

"There's a matter that needs explaining, Cass. According to Blackwell's
story, you caught him with the goods at the time of the robbery, and in
making his getaway he left the loot with you. What have you done with
it?"

"Blackwell told you that, did he?"

"Yes."

"Don't doubt your word for a moment, Bucky, but before I do any talking
I'd like to hear him say so. I'll not round on him u