ow
for blow, killing cattle on the railroad, supplying themselves with
fresh meat from our herd, filling up or draining the water-holes. And
two days ago, at this very camp.... I don't know the merits of the case;
but I do know that one of our men was shot through the shoulder, and is
lying critically near to death."

He nodded gloomily. "That was bad," he admitted, adding: "And it
promptly brought on more violence. On the night of the same day your
cow-men returned and dynamited the canal."

Again she stopped him with the imperative little gesture.

"Did you see them do it?"

"Naturally, no one saw them do it. But it was done, nevertheless."

She rose and faced him fairly.

"You found my note last evening--when you were returning with Sheriff
Beckwith?"

"I found an unsigned note on a little barrier of tree-branches on the
trail; yes."

"I wrote it and put it there," she declared. "I told you you were about
to commit an act of injustice, and you have committed it--a very great
one, indeed, Mr. Ballard."

"I am open to conviction," he conceded, almost morosely. She was
confronting him like an angry goddess, and mixed up with the thought
that he had never seen her so beautiful and so altogether desirable was
another thought that he should like to run away and hide.

"Yes; you are open to conviction--after the fact!" she retorted,
bitterly. "Do you know what you have done? You have fallen like a
hot-headed boy into a trap set for you by my father's enemies. You have
carefully stripped Arcadia of every man who could defend our
cattle--just as it was planned for you to do."

"But, good heavens!" he began, "I----"

"Hear me out," she commanded, looking more than ever the princess of her
father's kingdom. "Down in the canyon of the Boiling Water there is a
band of outlaws that has harried this valley for years. Assuming that
you would do precisely what you have done, some of these men came up and
dynamited your canal, timing the raid to fit your inspection tour. Am I
making it sufficiently plain?"

"O my sainted ancestors!" he groaned. And then: "Please go on; you can't
make it any worse."

"They confidently expected that you would procure a wholesale arrest of
the Arcadia ranch force; but they did not expect you to act as promptly
as you did. That is why they turned and fired upon you in Dry Valley
Gulch: they thought they were suspected and pursued, not by you or any
of your men, but by our cow-boys. Your