, it ain't about Charlie,"
she added harshly. "He's shet uh me, and I'm shet uh him. I--got some
other business with Seabeck. Tell him to bring a couple uh men along
with him."

"Is there any hurry, Marthy?" Billy Louise stood holding the cup and
saucer in her two hands, and stared down anxiously at the lined old
face on the pillow. A faint, red glow was in the sky, and the
lamp-light dimmed with the coming of day. "You don't feel--badly, do
you, Marthy?"

"Me? No, Why should I feel bad? But I want t' see Seabeck and a couple
of his men, jest as quick as you kin git word to 'em."

"Which ones?" Billy Louise was plainly puzzled. Was Marthy going to
make him take those cattle back? It was like her. Billy Louise did
not blame her for feeling that way, either. If she had had the money,
she would have paid him herself for the cattle.

"It don't matter which ones. You send 'im word, Billy Louise, like the
good girl yuh always have been. You've always kinda took the place of
my Minervy to me, Billy Louise; and I won't bother yuh much longer."

"Oh, of course I will! The stage will go up this forenoon. I'll send
a note to Seabeck. It won't be any bother at all. What shall I say?
Just that you want to see him?"

"I kin write it m'self, I guess, if you'll bring me a pencil and paper.
I can't seem t' git used to a pen. I kin write all I want t' say."

Billy Louise let it go at that. She brought the paper and pencil and
went after Blue, while Marthy, sitting up in bed, wrote her note.
Billy Louise was eager to start; and I don't think anyone should blame
her if she hurried Marthy a little, and if her parting words were few,
and her manner slightly abstracted. She knew just how Marthy was
feeling--or thought she did; and she was simply wild with anxiety over
Ward.

Blue discovered before she was out of the gorge that his lady was wild
over something. Never had she come so near to being a merciless rider
as on that nippy morning. There were drifts: Blue went through them in
great lunges. There were steep hills: but there was no stopping at the
top to breathe awhile and admire the view. Billy Louise rode with an
eye upon the climbing sun, and with her mind busy adding up miles and
minutes.

She rode up the creek trail at a long lope, and she pulled up at the
stable and slid off Blue, who was wet to his ears and moving every rib
when he breathed. (Blue was a good horse, with plenty of speed and
sta