nd stopped short. Of course, a mere girl should not take
it for granted that a man had failed to do all that might be done. And
Billy Louise had a swift conviction that she would never think of
talking like this to Ward. She flushed a little; and still, Charlie
Fox was a tenderfoot. She was justified in asking those questions, and
in her heart she knew it.

"Yes, I thought of that--strange as it may seem." Charlie's voice was
unoffended. On the contrary, he seemed glad that she took so keen an
interest in his affairs. "It has been a week, you know, since they
flew the coop. I did hunt every foot of that Cove, twice over. I
drove every hoof of stock up and corraled them, and made sure these
four were not in the herd. Then I hunted through every inch of that
willow jungle and all along the bluff and the river; Miss Louise, I put
in three days at it, from sunrise till it was too dark to see. Then I
began riding outside. There isn't a trace of them anywhere. I had
just bought them from Seabeck, you know. I drove them home, and
because they were tired, and so was I, I just left them in that upper
meadow as I came down the gorge. I hadn't branded them yet. I--I know
I've made an awful botch of the thing, Miss Louise," he confessed,
turning toward her with an honest distress and a self-flaying humility
in his eyes that wiped from Billy Louise's mind any incipient tendency
toward contempt. "But you see I'm green at this ranch game. And I
never dreamed those calves weren't perfectly safe in there. The fence
was new and strong; I built it new this fall, you know. And the bars
are absolutely bars to any stock larger than a rabbit. Of course," he
added, with a deprecating note, "four calves are only four calves.
But--it's the sense of failure that gets me hardest, Miss Louise. Aunt
Martha trusted me to take care of things. Her confidence in me fairly
takes my nerve. And losing four fine, big heifer calves at one whack
is no way to get rich; is it, Miss Louise?" He laughed, and again the
laugh did not go deep, or reach his eyes.

"I hate to bother you with this, and I don't want you to think I have
come whining for sympathy," he said, after a minute of moody silence.
"But seeing they were not branded yet--with our brand--I thought
perhaps you had run across them and paid no attention, thinking they
belonged to Seabeck."

Billy Louise smiled a little to herself. If he had not been quite so
"green at the r