ne, I couldn't say anything. She's his sister."

"You--didn't--tell!" Pink leaned against the stable and stared. "Rowdy
Vaughan, there's times when even your friend can't disguise the fact
that yuh act plumb batty. Yuh let Harry do yuh dirt that any other man'd
'a' killed him on bare suspicion uh doing; and yuh never told her when
she asked yuh to! How yuh lent him money, and let him steal some right
out uh your pocket--"

"I couldn't prove that," Rowdy objected.

"And yuh never told her about his cutting your latigo--"

"Oh, cut it out!" Rowdy glowered down at him. "I guess I don't need to
be reminded of all those things. But are they the things a man can tell
a girl about her brother? Pink, you're about as unfeeling a little devil
as I ever run across. Maybe you'd have told her; but I couldn't. So it's
all off."

He turned away and stared unseeingly at the rim of hills that hid the
place where she lived. She seemed very far away from him just then--and
very, very desirable. He thought then that he had never before realized
just how much he cared.

"You can jest bet I'd 'a' told her!" gritted Pink, watching furtively
Rowdy's averted face. "She ain't goin' t' be bowed down by no load of
ignorance much longer, either. If she don't get Harry Conroy's pedigree
straight out, without the varnish, it'll be because I ain't next to all
his past."

But Rowdy, glooming among the debris of certain pet air-castles, neither
heard nor wanted to hear Pink's wrathful mutterings. As a matter of
fact, it was not till Pink clattered out of the yard on Mascot that he
remembered where he was. Even then it did not occur to him to wonder
where Pink was going.

CHAPTER 9. Moving the Herd.

Four thousand weary cattle crawled up the long ridge which divides Chin
Coulee from Quitter Creek. Pink, riding point, opposite the Silent One,
twisted round in his saddle and looked back at the slow-moving river of
horns and backs veiled in a gray dust-cloud. Down the line at intervals
rode the others, humped listlessly in their saddles, their hat brims
pulled low over tired eyes that smarted with dust and wind and burning
heat.

Pink sighed, and wished lonesomely that it was Rowdy riding point with
him, instead of the Silent One, who grew even more silent as the day
dragged leadenly to mid-afternoon; Pink could endure anything better
than being left to his thoughts and to the complaining herd for company.

He took off his hat, pushed back