ve got, throw me down!"

"I don't see," said Lee slowly, after a brief pause, "just what good it
does to sell a string of real horses like they were sheep. Half of
that herd is real horse-flesh, I tell you."

"Hampton wants money. And besides, a horse is a horse."

"Is it?" A hard smile touched Lee's lips. "That's just where a man
makes a mistake. Some horses are cows, some are clean spirit. You can
stake your boots on that, Trevors."

"Well," snapped Trevors, "suppose you are right. I've got to raise
three thousand dollars in a hurry. Where will I get it?"

"Who is offering fifty dollars a head for those horses?" asked Lee
abruptly. "It might be the Big Western Lumber Company?"

"Yes."

"Uh-huh. Well, you can kill the rats in your own barn, Trevors. I'll
go look for a job somewhere else."

Bayne Trevors, his lips tightly compressed, his eyes steady, a faint,
angry flush in his cheeks, checked what words were flowing to his
tongue and looked keenly at his foreman. Lee met his regard with cool
unconcern. Then, just as Trevors was about to speak, there came an
interruption.

II

JUDITH TAKES A HAND

The quiet of the morning was broken by the quick thud of a horse's shod
hoofs on the hard ground of the courtyard. Bud Lee in the doorway
turned to see a strange horse drawn up so that upon its four bunched
hoofs it slid to a standstill; saw a slender figure, which in the early
light he mistook for a boy, slip out of the saddle. And then,
suddenly, a girl, the spurs of her little riding-boots making jingling
music on the veranda, her riding-quirt swinging from her wrist, had
stepped by him and was looking with bright, snapping eyes from him to
Trevors.

"I am Judith Sanford," she announced briefly, and there was a note in
her young voice which went ringing, bell-like, through the still air.
"Is one of you men Bayne Trevors?"

A quick, shadowy smile came and went upon the lips of Bud Lee. It
struck him that she might have said in just that way: "I am the Queen
of England and I am running my own kingdom!" He looked at her with
eyes filled with open interest and curiosity, making swift appraisal of
the flush in the sun-browned cheeks, the confusion of dark, curling
hair disturbed by her furious riding, the vivid, red-blooded beauty of
her. Mouth and eyes and the very carriage of the dark head upon her
superb white throat announced boldly and triumphantly that here was no
wax-petalled lily