onditions in himself and
to a certain youthful chivalry.

"We're good pals, ain't we?" was the best he could do by way of answer.

"Yes, but you don't--you don't--"

Beneath the tan of her dark cheeks the blood poured in again. It was as
hard for her to talk about love as for him. She felt the same shy, uneasy
embarrassment, as though it were some subject taboo, not to be discussed
by sane-minded people.

His freckled face matched hers in color. "You don't have to be thataway.
If we like each other, an' if it looks like the best thing to do--why--"

"I couldn't leave Dad," she said.

"You'll have to leave him if you marry Jake Houck."

That brought her to another aspect of the situation. If she ran away with
Bob and married him, what would Houck do in regard to her father? Some
deep instinct told her that he would not punish Tolliver for it if she
went without his knowledge. The man was ruthless, but he was not
needlessly cruel.

"What would we do? Where would we go--afterward?" she asked.

He waved a hand largely into space. "Anywhere. Denver, maybe. Or
Cheyenne. Or Salt Lake."

"How'd we live?"

"I'd get work. No trouble about that."

She considered the matter, at first unsentimentally, as a workable
proposition. In spite of herself she could not hold quite to that aspect
of the case. Her blood began to beat faster. She would escape Houck. That
was the fundamental advantage of the plan. But she would see the world.
She would meet people. Perhaps for the first time she would ride on a
train. Wonderful stories had been told her by Dillon, of how colored men
cooked and served meals on a train rushing along forty miles an hour, of
how they pulled beds down from the roof and folks went to sleep in little
rooms just as though they were at home. She would see all the lovely
things he had described to her. There was a court-house in Denver where
you got into a small room and it traveled up with you till you got out
and looked down four stories from a window.

"If we go it'll have to be right away," she said. "Without tellin'
anybody."

"Yes," he agreed.

"I could go back to the house an' get my things."

"While I'm gettin' mine. There's nobody at the camp but Lon, an' he
always sleeps after he gets through work. But how'll we get to Bear
Cat?"

"I'll bring the buckboard. Dad's away. I'll leave him a note. Meet you in
half an hour on Twelve-Mile Hill," she added.

It was so arranged.

June ran back to