ther!" wailed the child.

"We need good white man to run de ranch."

"But _Smith_--do you think _he's_ good? Good! Is a rattlesnake good? Can't
you see what he is, Mother?--you who are smarter than me in seeing through
people? He's mean--onery to the marrow--and some day sure--_sure_--he'll
turn, and strike his fangs into you."

"He no onery," the woman replied, in something like anger.

"It's his nature," Susie went on, without heeding her. "He can't help it.
All his thoughts and talk and schemes are about something crooked. Can't
you tell by the things he lets drop that he ought to be in the 'pen'? He's
treacherous, ungrateful, a born thief. I saw him take Tubbs's halter, and
there was the regular thief look in his eyes when he cut his own name on
it. I saw him kick a dog, and he kicked it like a brute. He kicked it in
the ribs with his toe. Men--decent men--kick a dog with the side of their
foot. I saw his horse fall with him, and he held it down and beat it on
the neck with a chain, where it wouldn't show. He'd hold up a bank or rob
a woman; he'd kill a man or a prairie-dog, and think no more of the one
than the other.

"I tell you, Mother, as sure as I sit here on the floor at your feet,
begging you, he's going to bring us trouble; he's going to deal us misery!
I feel it! I _know_ it!"

"You no like de white man."

"That's right; I don't like the white man. He wants a good place to stay;
he wants your horses and cattle and hay; and--he wants the Schoolmarm.
He's making a fool of you, Mother."

"He no make fool of me," she answered complacently. "He make fool of de
white woman, maybe."

"Look out of the window and see for yourself."

They arose together, and the girl pointed to Smith and Dora, seated side
by side on the cottonwood log.

"Did he ever look at you like that, Mother?"

"He make fool of de white woman," she reiterated stubbornly, but her face
clouded.

"He makes a fool of himself, but not of her," declared Susie. "He's crazy
about her--locoed. Everybody sees it except her. Believe me, Mother,
listen to Susie just this once."

"He like me. I stick to him;" but she went back to her bench. The
unfamiliar softness of Smith's face hurt her.

The tears filled Susie's eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her mother's
passion for this hateful stranger was stronger than her mother-love, that
silent, undemonstrative love in which Susie had believed as she believed
that the sun would rise each morning o