l had come to that dolorous time in a woman's life when she no
longer has the power of attracting male attention--which power is not a
matter of age, but merely of mind and spirit. And yet there were depths in
her, Larkin found, unsuspected because unsought.

Loving her daughter as she loved her husband, she derived a certain
negative happiness from the fact that their exclusive companionship
brought them pleasure.

For herself she asked nothing, and, as is the way of the world, she got
it.

For Bud Larkin, who had only known her as an angular, uninteresting
addendum of the Bar T, she took on a certain pathetic interest, and he
went out of his way to talk with her about the glories of Chicago, since
her one dissipation seemed to be mental journeys back East.

Larkin was not strictly a prisoner at the Bar T ranch-house, for this had
been found impracticable from a number of standpoints. He had the run of
the ranch, an old, decrepit cow pony to ride, and could go in any
direction he chose under the supervision of a cowboy who carried a
Winchester and was known to have impaled flies on cactus spines at thirty
yards.

Occasionally Bud and Juliet rode out together, with this man in the rear,
and renewed the old friendship that had lain dormant for so long. During
one of these rides the girl, after debating the matter with herself,
opened on a delicate subject.

"That Caldwell man is a strange-looking fellow, Bud. Who is he?"

Larkin looked at Juliet closely before replying, but could find nothing in
her face to indicate any but a natural curiosity.

"He is a Chicago character I used to know," he returned shortly. "But what
brought him out here is a puzzle to me."

"You seemed to want to see him pretty badly," said she, assuming a pout.
"I was really jealous of him taking you off the way he did that first
night you came."

"That's the first time I have been flattered with your jealousy," Bud
returned gayly. "I'll ask him to come again."

And that was the closest she could come to a discussion of Caldwell's
connection with Larkin. The fact, although she would not admit it, gave
her more concern than it should have, and kept her constantly under a
cloud of uneasiness. Bud's evasion of the subject added strength to the
fear that there was really something horrible in Bud's past.

It was on one of his rides alone that Bud suddenly came to a very
unflattering solution of another problem in regard to Caldwell. Ever
s