g with passion; "I don't want you
to ride with me. You came here and usurped whatever power and authority
there is; and you are running the Rancho Seco as though it belongs to
you. But you shan't ride with me--I don't want you to!"

Had she been standing she must have stamped one foot on the ground, so
vehement was her manner. And the flashing scorn of her eyes should have
been enough to discourage most men.

But not Harlan. His eyelids flickered with some emotion; and his
eyes--she noted now, even though she could have killed him for his
maddening insistence--were blue, and rimmed by heavy lashes that sun and
sand had bleached until the natural brown of them threatened to become a
light tan.

She studied him, even while hating him for she saw the force of him--felt
it. And though she was thinking spiteful things of him, she found that
she was forming a new impression of him--of his character, his
appearance, and of the motives that controlled him.

And she thought she knew why men avoided having trouble with him. She
told herself that if she were a man and she were facing him with violence
in her heart, she would consider seriously before she betrayed it to him.
For in his eyes, in the lips, in the thrust of his chin--even in the
atmosphere that surrounded him at this instant, was a threat, an unspoken
promise, lingering and dormant, of complete readiness--almost eagerness,
she was convinced--for violence.

She drew a sharp breath as she watched him. And when she saw his lips
curving into a slight smile--wholesome, though grave; with a hint of
boyish amusement in them--she got another quick impression of his
character, new and startling and illuminating.

For behind the hard, unyielding exterior that he presented to men; back
of the promise and the threat of violence, was the impulsiveness and the
gentleness that would have ruled him had not the stern necessity of
self-preservation forced him to conceal them.

The smile disarmed her. It _did_ seem ludicrous--that she should try to
force this man to do anything he did not want to do. And she had known
that he would not obey her, and ride back to the ranchhouse; she was
convinced that she must either go back or suffer him to follow her as he
pleased.

And she was determined not to give up her ride. She was determined to be
very haughty about it, though; but when she wheeled Billy, to head him
again into the western distance, her eyes twinkled her surrender, and