y tea. Wouldn't that jar you?"

Ballard swung out of his saddle and vanished through the open door of
the commissary, leaving Bigelow and the motor-maniac to their own
devices. In the littered storeroom he found Miss Craigmiles, sitting
upon a coil of rope and calmly drinking her tea from a new tin can.

"At last!" she sighed, smiling up at him; and then: "Mercy me! how
savage you look! We are trespassers; I admit it. But you'll be lenient
with us, won't you? Jerry says there is a broken spark-plug, or
something; but I am sure we can move on if we're told to. You have come
to tell us to move on, Mr. Ballard?"

His frown was only the outward and visible sign of the inward attempt to
grapple with the possibilities; but it made his words sound something
less than solicitous.

"This is no place for you," he began; but she would not let him go on.

"I have been finding it quite a pleasant place, I assure you. Mr.
Fitzpatrick is an Irish gentleman. No one could have been kinder. You've
no idea of the horrible things he promised to do to the cook if this tea
wasn't just right."

If she were trying to make him smile, she succeeded. Fitzpatrick's
picturesque language to his men was the one spectacular feature of the
headquarters camp.

"That proves what I said--that this is no place for you," he rejoined,
still deprecating the camp crudities. "And you've been here an hour,
Blacklock says."

"An hour and twelve minutes, to be exact," she admitted, tilting the
tiny watch pinned upon the lapel of her driving-coat. "But you left us
no alternative. We have driven uncounted miles this afternoon, looking
for you and Mr. Bigelow."

Ballard flushed uncomfortably under the tan and sunburn. Miss Craigmiles
could have but one object in seeking him, he decided; and he would have
given worlds to be able to set the business affair and the sentimental
on opposite sides of an impassable chasm. Since it was not to be, he
said what he was constrained to say with characteristic abruptness.

"It is too late. The matter is out of my hands, now. The provocation was
very great; and in common loyalty to my employers I was obliged to
strike back. Your father----"

She stopped him with a gesture that brought the blood to his face again.

"I know there has been provocation," she qualified. "But it has not been
all on one side. Your men have told you how our range-riders have
annoyed them: probably they have not told you how they have given bl