ean me to use now, Jim?" Jack asked, her
voice and manner changing.

"Best I can do at present," Jim replied soberly. "Tricks ain't up to
Hotspur and you may have to watch him a bit."

"Jean," Jack whispered, just before she mounted her horse. "We have made
up our minds to it, haven't we? Do you think we will be able to endure
it?"

Jean cast her brown eyes up to heaven. "Bear it?" she groaned. "Well I
suppose if we must, we must. Only tell Jim, maybe he will say we must
not, then think of the relief!" Jean sighed, half in fun and half in
earnest, and watched Jim and Jack scamper out of sight.

"Wonder what old Jim and Jack are up to?" she murmured. "If they only
were going to see how nearly dry Rainbow Creek is, they would have taken
one of the cowboys with them. They are sure to have to pull a cow or a
calf out of a mud hole, before they are through. Jim looks as sober as a
judge. I hope he hasn't heard anything about the--" Jean broke off her
musing, with a stamp of her foot. "Of course not, I am a goose to think
of it," she told herself sternly.

Jim Colter and Jack galloped on in silence, Jim riding high in his
saddle, standing nearly erect, with his feet well out in the Western
cowboy fashion. He wore a pair of fringed trousers, with a cartridge
belt around his waist and two big Colt's revolvers were stuck in the
holsters on either side. A forty-foot rope was coiled and hung at the
pommel of his saddle. Jim's Irish blue eyes were black with anger this
morning and his lips set in a firm, hard line.

The two riders had followed the bed of Rainbow Creek for two miles
through the ranch before either one of them spoke.

Jim wheeled and looked Jack straight in the eyes. "You have a piece of
news for me, haven't you, Jack?" he asked.

Jack nodded. "My news will keep. What is it you have to tell me? I know
it is important."

"Can you bear it, girl?" Jim asked abruptly. "It's pretty bad."

Jack lifted her eyes without speaking. A moment later they filled with
tears and her lips trembled. "It isn't true though, Jim, is it?" she
entreated. "He can't prove what isn't true."

Jim squared his shoulders. "That is just the point, Miss Jack, and what
we have got to fight. Daniel Norton says he can prove that he is the
rightful owner of Rainbow Ranch. He has papers to show it and we haven't
a sign of anything. What we have got to establish is that his claim is
a lie and that Rainbow Ranch don't belong to nobody on this