ped in two by a
rifle-shot, Judith sat and turned the pages of a book. It was a volume
on the breeding and care of pure-blooded horses. Odd sort of thing for
her hermit to have brought here with him! Her hand took down another
volume. Horses again; a treatise by an eminent authority upon a newly
imported line from Arabia. A third book; this, a volume of Elizabethan
lyrics. Bud Lee flushed as he watched her. She turned the pages
slowly, came back to the fly-leaf page, read the name scrawled there
and, turning swiftly to Lee, said accusingly:

"David Burrill Lee, you are a humbug!"

"Wrong again," grinned Lee. "A hermit, you mean! 'A man with a soul.'
. . ."

"Scat!" answered Judith. But, under Bud Lee's teasing eyes, the color
began to come back into her cheeks. She _had_ been a wee bit
enthusiastic over her hermit, making of him a picturesque ideal. She
had visioned him, even to the calm eyes, gentle voice. A quick little
frown touched her brows as she realized that the eyes and voice which
her fancy had bestowed upon the hermit were in actuality the eyes and
voice of Bud Lee. But she had called him a dear. And Lee had been
laughing at her all the time--had not told her, would never have told
her. The thought came to her that she would like to slap Bud Lee's
face for him. And she had told Tripp she would like to slap Pollock
Hampton's. Good and hard!

XII

PARDNERS

From without came the low murmur of men's voices. Judith laid her book
aside and drew her rifle across her knees, her eyes bright and eager.
At infrequent intervals for perhaps three or four minutes the two
voices came indistinctly to those in the cabin. Then silence for as
long a time. And then a voice again, this time quite near the door,
calling out clearly:

"Hey, you in there! Pitch the money out the window and we'll let you
go."

"There's a voice," said Judith quietly, "to remember! I'll be able to
swear to it in court."

Certainly a voice to remember, just as one remembers an unusual face
for years, though it be but a chance one seen in a crowd. A voice
markedly individual, not merely because it was somewhat high-pitched
for a man's, but rather for a quality not easily defined, which gave to
it a certain vibrant, unpleasant harshness, sounding metallic almost,
rasping, as though with the hiss of steel surfaces rubbing. Altogether
impossible to describe adequately, yet, as Judith said, not to be
forgotten.