ds. It's no fun for me. You say you're
going to ride home?"

"There's a moon. I shan't get lost again."

He was loath to let her get away. At the door he asked if he couldn't
ride a way with her. "I'll get Lefever or Sawdy to stay here while I'm
gone," he urged.

"No, no."

"It isn't that they don't want to," he explained. "But the boys felt
kind of bad and went down to the Mountain House. Why not?"

She regarded him gravely: "One reason is, I'd never get rid of you till
I got home."

"I'll cross my heart."

"We might meet somebody. I don't want any more explosions. Let's talk
about something else."

He asked to go with her to the barn to get her horse. The simplicity
of his urging was hard to resist. "I must tell you something," she
said at last. "If you go with me to the barn we should be seen
together."

"And you're ashamed of me?"

"I said I must tell you something," she repeated with emphasis. "Will
you give me a chance?"

"Go to it."

She looked at him frankly: "I don't always have the easiest time in the
world at home. And there is always somebody around a big ranch to
bring stories to father about whom I'm seen with. Everybody in town
talks--except Belle. I must just do the best I can till things get
better."

"Here's hoping that'll be soon."

"Good-by!"

"Safe journey."

CHAPTER XXX

THE FUNERAL--AND AFTER

The funeral had been set for the following afternoon, but preparations
were going forward all morning. In spite of the brief notice that had
got abroad of Hawk's death, men from many directions were riding into
town that morning to help bury him. A reaction of sentiment concerning
the Falling Wall raid was making itself felt; its brutal ferocity was
being more openly criticized and less covertly denounced. Hawk's
personal popularity had never suffered among the cowboys and the cowboy
following. He had been known far and wide for open-handed generosity
and blunt truthfulness--and these were traits to silence or to soften
reprobation of his fitful and reckless disregard for the property
rights of the big companies. He was a freebooter with most of the
virtues and vices of his kind. But the crowd that morning in Sleepy
Cat was assembling to pay tribute to the man--however far gone wrong.
His virtues they were, no doubt, willing to bury with him; the memory
of his vices would serve some of them when they might need a lawless
precedent.

Up to the funeral