laughter, though her eyes danced.

"Don't mind him," she said comfortingly, as she eyed Meeteetse, sprawled
on his back with his eyes closed. "He's afraid he'll learn something. He
used to be a sheep-herder, and I don't reckon he's got more'n two hundred
and fifty words in his whole vocabulary. Why, I'll bet he never _heard_ a
word of more'n three syllables before. Get up, Meeteetse. Go out in the
fresh air and build yourself a couple of them sheep-herder's monuments.
It'll make you feel better."

The prostrate humorist revived. Susie's jeers had the effect of a bucket
of ice-water, for he had not been aware that this blot upon his
escutcheon--the disgraceful epoch in his life when he had earned honest
money herding sheep--was known.

"My enthusiasm runs away with me when I get upon this subject," said
McArthur, in blushing apology to the group. "I am sorry that I have bored
you."

"No bore a-tall," declared Old Man Rulison magnanimously. "You cut loose
whenever you feel like it: we kin stand it as long as you kin."

After McArthur had gone to his pneumatic mattress in the patent tent
pitched near the bunk-house, Ralston said to Susie:

"You and the bug-hunter are great friends, aren't you?"

"You bet! We're pardners. Anybody that gets funny with him has got me to
fight."

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Ralston laughed.

"We've got secrets--the bug-hunter and me."

"You're rather young for secrets, Susie."

"Nobody's too young for secrets," she declared. "Haven't you any?"

"Sure," Ralston nodded.

"I like you," Susie whispered impulsively. "Let's swap secrets."

He looked at her and wished he dared. He would have liked to tell her of
his mission, to ask her help; for he realized that, if she chose, no one
could help him more. Like Smith, he recognized that quality in her they
each called "gameness," and even more than Smith he appreciated the
commingling of Scotch shrewdness and Indian craft. He believed Susie to be
honest; but he had believed many things in the past which time had not
demonstrated to be facts. No, the chance was too great to take; for should
she prove untrustworthy or indiscreet, his mission would be a failure. So
he answered jestingly:

"My secrets are not for little girls to know."

Susie gave him a quick glance.

"Oh, you don't look as though you had that kind," and turned away.

Ralston felt somehow that he had lost an opportunity. He could not rid
himself of the feeling the e