such mistakes to Shoop. Lorry
preferred to give his own version of an affair that he had mishandled
rather than to have to explain some other version later. He was no
epitome of perfection. He was inclined to be arbitrary when he knew he
was in the right. Argument irritated him. He considered his "Yes" or
"No" sufficient, without explanation.

He made Shoop's cabin his headquarters, and spent his spare time cording
wood. He liked his occupation, and felt rather independent with the
comfortable cabin, a good supply of food, a corral and pasture for the
ponies, plenty of clear, cold water, and a hundred trails to ride each
day from dawn to dark as he should choose. Once unfamiliar with the
timber country, he grew to love the twinkling gold of the aspens, the
twilight vistas of the spruce and pines, and the mighty sweep of the
great purple tides of forest that rolled down from the ranges into a
sheer of space that had no boundary save the sky.

He grew a trifle thinner in the high country. The desert tan of his
cheeks and throat deepened to a ruddy bronze.

Aside from pride in his work, he took special pride in his equipment,
keeping his bits and conchas polished and his leather gear oiled.
Reluctantly he discarded his chaps. He found that they hindered him when
working on foot. Only when he rode into Jason for supplies did he wear
his chaps, a bit of cowboy vanity quite pardonable in his years.

If he ever thought of women at all, it was when he lounged and smoked by
the evening fire in the cabin, sometimes recalling "that Eastern girl
with the jim-dandy mother." He wondered if they ever thought of him, and
he wished that they might know he was now a full-fledged ranger with
man-size responsibilities. "And mebby they think I'm ridin' south yet,"
he would say to himself. "I must have looked like I didn't aim to pull
up this side of Texas, from the way I lit out." But, then, women didn't
understand such things.

Occasionally he confided something of the kind to the spluttering fire,
laughing as he recalled the leg of lamb with which he had waved his
hasty farewell.

"And I was scared, all right. But I wasn't so scared I forgot I'd get
hungry." Which conclusion seemed to satisfy him.

When he learned that a writer had leased five acres next to Bud's cabin,
he was skeptical as to how he would get along with "strangers." He liked
elbow-room. Yet, on second thought, it would make no difference to him.
He would not be a