ne that
fooled you?"

"No woman would ever take the trouble."

She laughed a little: "You never can tell."

"If a woman ever fooled me, she'd have to fool herself first--so she'd
be the loser."

"What a philosopher!"

"First and last, I've been called a good many names--some full
hard--but never a philosopher before."

Kate started for the front door: "Hold on a minute," he objected,
"what's to do here while you're gone?"

"Serve coffee and sandwiches if anybody comes in. This time of day
there's never anybody comes in."

He turned on his stool: "How soon'll you be back?"

"In a few minutes."

"Get a good horse for yourself."

Kate gave him a parting shot: "Of course you think I can't ride."

It did not take her long to get up the hill. Breathless, she
encountered old Henry in the garden, asked him for the ponies and
almost ran into the house. Her father was asleep. There was no reason
to stir him up over a situation that she was resolved to handle and
felt she could handle. She got into her riding clothes in a trice, all
the time wondering whether she could hold her wild man in leash long
enough to defeat him. Had he been more like anybody she had ever met
and known, the problem would have been less confusing. But she
determined to shut her eyes and win the fight if she could, and to this
end draft every resource. So she thought, at least, as she caught up
her little revolver and, dropping it into the scabbard she had belted
about her waist, set forth.

She rode back one of her own ponies and led the other. Her enemy had
good ears for when she was half way to the eating-house he walked out
on the platform and silently surveyed her approach. Kate watched him
narrowly and drew up before him to estimate the effect. She was
disappointed, she had to confess, at his cool indifference, for she
thought her riding rig unusually pretty. It had seemingly failed to
impress her queer Westerner. His eyes were all for the horses. "Clean
ponies," he observed, taking the bridle rein from her hand as he looked
the two over.

"I forgot to ask what kind of a saddle you like," she observed
indifferently. He was scanning the horses and his eyes not being on
her she got her first real good look at her antagonist--whether he was
to be her victim she was in somewhat anxious doubt.

CHAPTER VI

WHICH WINS?

He was long of limb, rather loose-jointed; but not ungraceful, except as
his simple manner an