own? Tell the world you're Bob Dillon and for it to watch your dust."

"You want me to brag an' strut like Jake Houck?"

"No-o, not like that. But Blister's right. You've got to know your worth.
When you're sure of it you don't have to tell other people about it. They
know."

He considered this. "Tha's correct," he said.

"Well, then."

Bob had an inspiration. It was born out of moonshine, her urging, and the
hunger of his heart. His spurs trailed across the grass.

"Is my red haid high enough now?" he asked, smiling.

Panic touched her pulse. "Yes, Bob."

"What have I got over all the world?" he quizzed.

"Dominion," she said obediently in a small voice.

"Over all of it?"

"I--don't--know."

His brown hands fastened on her shoulders. He waited till at last her
eyes came up to meet his. "Every teeny bit of it."

"Have your own way," she replied, trying feebly to escape an emotional
climax by repeating the words he had used. "I know you will anyhow."

He felt himself floating on a wave of audacious self-confidence. "Say it,
then. Every teeny bit of it."

"Every teeny bit of it," she whispered.

"That means June Tolliver too." The look in his eyes flooded her with
love.

"June Dillon," the girl corrected in a voice so soft and low he scarcely
made out the words.

He caught her in his arms. "You precious lamb!"

They forgot the rest of the catechism. She nestled against his shoulder
while they told each other in voiceless ways what has been in the hearts
of lovers ever since the first ones walked in Eden.

CHAPTER XLV

THE OUTLAW GETS A BAD BREAK

Houck crawled through the barbed-wire fence and looked back into the park
from which he had just fled. June was kneeling beside the man he had
shot. Some one was running across the grass toward her. Soon the pursuit
would be at his heels. He dared not lose a second.

He plunged into the sage, making for the hills which rose like a
saw-toothed wall on the horizon. If he could reach them he might find
there a precarious safety. Some wooded pocket would give him shelter
until the pursuit had swept past. He was hungry, but if he must he could
do without food for a day.

The bandit was filled with a furious, impotent rage at the way fortune
had tricked him. Thirty-five miles from Bear Cat, well back from the
river, three horses were waiting for him and his dead companions in a
draw. Unless somebody found them they would wait a long time. The way