t
her, unexpectedly, out on a trail within sight of her father's
ranch-house hardly three miles away. He pointed to a break heading
from the creek. "You can follow that draw almost to the house," he
explained. Then, reining about, he wheeled his horse to take the back
trail. "Are you going to run away without giving me a chance to thank
you?" she exclaimed, with a feminine touch of surprise.

"There's a gate near the head of the draw where you can get through the
wire," he rejoined stubbornly.

"I can't see how I can ever repay you for what you've done tonight,"
she persisted.

He was coldly uncompromising. "You needn't bother about any pay, if
that's what you call it."

Skilfully she drew her horse a step closer to him. "What shall I call
it?" she asked innocently, "debt, obligation? I owe you a lot, ever so
much to me--my life."

"I've done no more for you than I've done for less than a human being,"
he returned impatiently.

"I'm sure that's so. But human beings," she added, with a touch of
gentle good-nature, "are supposed to have more feeling than cows or
steers, you know."

"I never had a cow or a steer call me names," he retorted rudely.

"If you weren't a human being you wouldn't mind being called names; you
wouldn't be so angry with me, either."

"I'm not angry," he said resentfully. His very helplessness in her
hands pricked her conscience at the moment that it restored her
supremacy. His strength might menace others--she at least had nothing
to fear from it.

"Do you know," she exclaimed, shaking off for the moment all restraint,
"what I'd like to do?"

He looked at her surprised.

"I'd like to ride back this minute with you and help find Abe Hawk. I
know I mustn't," she went on as he listened. "But I'd like to," she
persisted hurriedly. And then, afraid of herself more than of him, she
repressed a quick "good-by" and, without giving him time to answer,
galloped away.

She reached the ranch-house without further difficulty. No one was
stirring. She stopped at the corral and turned in her horse and,
walking awkwardly on her swollen ankle to the kitchen, built a fire,
warmed herself as best she could and went to her room. By the time her
father was stirring, Kate, under her coverlets, quite exhausted, was
fast asleep.

It was broad day when she woke. Through an open window, she saw sullen
gray clouds still rolling down from the northwest, but between them the
sun shot out a