ny dealing done. Probably
they hope to start a big row among us that way."

"We'll await Weir's advice."

"Well, I've waited all I'm going to to-night. Seems to me for a
steady, quiet, self-respecting, dignified, unhooked, unmarried,
unmortgaged, unromantic man he's skylarking and gallivanting around
pretty late."

* * * * *

On the rocky creek road the ranchman and his daughter Mary were
driving up among the trees on their way to the cabin, a lantern
swinging from the end of the wagon tongue, the horses straining
against the grade. On Johnson's beard the moisture formed beads which
from time to time he brushed away. From the trees collected drops of
water fell on their hands and knees. All about as they proceeded the
bushes and rocks appeared in shadowy outline, to disappear in the
night once more, yielding to others.

"Isn't this cabin where we're going the one we drove to three years
ago when you were hunting some cattle?" Mary asked.

"Yes."

"I never thought then that Ed Sorenson would be lying up there all
mashed to pieces," she said, with awed voice.

"I guess he didn't either," was the dry response.

"He ought to be ready to stop chasing girls after this," she
declared.

"He won't if he can walk; his kind never does quit."

"Then his kind ought to be locked up somewhere like mad dogs. In a
'sylum, maybe."

"I guess you're right on that, Mary. They're dangerous."

"Funny we didn't know he'd been up there, going past our house. He
must have been there first before taking Janet."

"Sneaked up in the night, probably. He'd have to have grub and so on
if he expected to stay even a day or two. Crooks always look after
their bellies, be sure."

"I reckon Janet Hosmer will like Mr. Weir a whole lot now, don't
you?"

"She ought to, if she doesn't."

A long silence followed while Mary apparently pursued the line of
thought opened up by this speculation.

"If she has the good sense I think she has," the rancher stated at
length, for his mind at least had been following out the subject,
"she'll not only like him a whole lot, but she'll lead him to the
altar and put her brand on him."

He spoke to unhearing ears. For just then Mary sagged against him, her
head sank on his shoulder. He put an arm around her form and let her
sleep, thus roughly expressing his tenderness and love. Weir had not
only rescued Janet Hosmer from the clutches of the man now lying
in