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“Oh!” she gasped, and drew away from him; “that poor, sick old man!”

He hastened to soften the charge. “Of course I didn’t know he was sick, or I wouldn’t ‘ave done it. He didn’t look sick the day before; besides, I didn’t intend to hurt him–much. I was only fixin’ for to scare him up for pullin’ a gun on me, that was all.”

“That’s the meanest thing I ever heard of–to think of that old man, helpless, and you and a dozen cowboys attacking him!”

“I tell you I didn’t know he was ailin’, and there was only six of us.”

Her tone hurt as she pointed at him. “And you pretend to be so brave.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You did!”

“No, I didn’t. You said I was brave and kind, but I denied it. I never soberly claimed any credit for driving off that band of outlaws. That’s one reason why I’ve been sticking so close to business here–I felt kind o’ conscience-struck.”

Her eyes were ablaze now. “Oh, it is! You’ve said a dozen times it was on my account.”

“That’s right–about eighty per cent, on yours and twenty per cent, on my own account–I mean the old man’s.”

“The idea!” She rose, her face dark with indignation. “Don’t you dare come here another time. I never heard of anything more–more awful. You a rowdy! I’ll never speak to you again. Go away! I despise you.”

Her anger and chagrin were genuine, that he felt. There was nothing playful or mocking in her tone at the moment. She saw him as he was, a reckless, vengeful young ruffian, and as such she hated him.

He got upon his feet slowly, and went out without further word of defense.

III

The sun did not rise for Roy Pierce on the day which followed her departure. His interest in Eagle River died and his good resolutions weakened. He went on one long, wild, wilful carouse, and when McCoy rescued him and began to exhort toward a better life, he resigned his job and went back to the home ranch, where his brothers, Claude and Harry, welcomed him with sarcastic comment as “the returning goat.”

He tried to make his peace with them by saying, “I’m done with whisky forever.”

“Good notion,” retorted Claude, who was something of a cynic; “just cut out women and drink, and you’ll be happy.”

Roy found it easier to give up drink than to forget Lida. To put away thought of her was like trying to fend the sunlight from his cabin window with his palm. He was entirely and hopelessly enslaved to the memory of her glowing face and smiling eyes. What was there in all his world to console him for the loss of her?

Mrs. Pierce wonderingly persisted in asking what had come over him, that he should be so sad and silent, and Claude finally enlightened her.

“He’s all bent up over a girl–the postmaster’s niece–of Eagle River, who had to quit the country to get shut of him.”

The mother’s heart was full of sympathy, and her desire to comfort her stricken son led to shy references to his “trouble” which made him savage. He went about the ranch so grimly, so spiritlessly, that Claude despairingly remarked:

“I wish the Lord that girl had got you. You’re as cheerful to have around as a poisoned hound. Why don’t you go down to the Springs and sit on her porch? That’s about all you’re good for now.”

This was a bull’s-eye shot, for Roy’s desire by day and his dream by night was to trail her to her home; but the fear of her scornful greeting, the thought of a cutting query as to the meaning of his call, checked him at the very threshold of departure a dozen times.

He had read of love-lorn people in the Saturday Storyteller, which found its way into the homes of the ranchers, but he had always sworn or laughed at their sufferings as a part of the play. He felt quite differently about these cases. Love was no longer a theme for jest, an abstraction, a far-off trouble; it had become a hunger more intolerable than any he had ever known, a pain that made all others he had experienced transitory and of no account.