f
torn from a man's memorandum book. "Lordy me, a letter from a lady!
Ain't that sweet!"

When he read it, however, the smile vanished with a click of the teeth
which betrayed his returning anger. One cold, curt sentence bidding him
wait until help came--that was all. His eye measured accusingly the wide
margin left blank under the words; she had not omitted apology or
explanation for lack of space, at any rate. His face grew cynically
amused again.

"Oh, certainly! I'd roost on this side-hill for a month, if a lady told
me to," he sneered, speaking aloud as he frequently did in the solitude
of the range land. He glanced from ribbon to note, ended his indecision
by stuffing the note carelessly into his coat pocket and letting the
ribbon drop to the ground, and with a curl of the lips which betrayed
his mental attitude toward all women and particularly toward that woman,
picked up his saddle.

"I can't seem to recollect asking that lady for help, anyway," he summed
up before he dismissed the subject from his mind altogether. "I was
trying to help her; it sure takes a woman to twist things around so they
point backwards!"

He turned and glanced pityingly at Rambler, watching him with ears
perked forward inquiringly. "And I crippled a damned good horse trying
to help a blamed poor specimen of a woman!" he gritted. "And didn't get
so much as a pleasant word for it. I'll sure remember that!"

Rambler whinnied after him wistfully, and Ford set his teeth hard
together and walked the faster, his shoulders slightly bent under the
weight of the saddle. His own physical discomfort was nothing, beside
the hurt of leaving his horse out there practically helpless; for a
moment his fingers rested upon the butt of his six-shooter, while he
considered going back and putting an end to life and misery for
Rambler. But for all the hardness men had found in Ford Campbell, he was
woman-weak where his horse was concerned. With cold reason urging him,
he laid the saddle on the ground and went back, his hand clutching
grimly the gun at his hip. Rambler's nicker of welcome stopped him
half-way and held him there, hot with guilt.

"Oh, damn it, I can't!" he muttered savagely, and retraced his steps to
where the saddle lay. After that he almost trotted down the coulee, and
he would not look back again until it struck him as odd that the
nickerings of the horse did not grow perceptibly fainter. With a queer
gripping of the muscles in his th