e my
conversation with you until the water boils."

Lee went into the cabin without looking back. Judith, watching him,
saw that he ran his hand across his forehead. She sniffed at him
again. But when Lee had the coffee ready she had washed her face at
the spring, had tucked her tumbled hair back under her hat, and,
looking remarkably cool, came into the cabin. Lee thought of his
meeting with Marcia, of her repeated assurance that she knew she had
violated the conventions.

"You _can_ make coffee," Judith nodded her approval as she sipped at
the black beverage, cooled a little by condensed milk. Lee was busied
with a tin containing potted meat. "Now, have you got over your shock
so that I can talk with you?"

He smiled at her across the little oil-cloth-covered table, and
answered lightly and with his old assurance that he guessed he had
steadied his nerve. Hadn't he told her a cup of coffee would do
wonders?

"Would it go to your head," began the girl abruptly, "if I were to tell
you that I size you up as the best man I've got on my pay-roll?"

"I'd try to keep both feet on the ground," he said gravely, though he
wondered what was coming.

"I'll explain," she continued, her tone impersonally businesslike.
"Next to you, I count on Doc Tripp; next to Tripp, on Carson. They are
good men; they are trustworthy; they understand ranch conditions and
they know what loyalty to the home-range means. But Tripp is just a
veterinarian; simply that and nothing more. His horizon isn't very
wide. Neither is Carson's."

"And mine?" he grinned at her. "Read me my horoscope, Miss Sanford!"

"You have taken the trouble to be something more than just a horse
foreman," she told him quietly. "I don't know what your advantages
have been; if you haven't gone through high school, then at least you
have been ambitious enough to get books, to read, to educate yourself.
You have developed further than Carson; you have broadened more than
Tripp."

"Thanks," he offered dryly.

"Oh, I'm not seeking to intrude into your private affairs, Mr. Bud
Lee!" she cried warmly at his tone. "I have no desire to do so, having
no interest in them. First of all, I want one thing clear: You said
when I first came that you'd stay a few days, long enough for me to get
a man in your place. We have both been rather too busy to think of
your leaving or my seeking a substitute. Now what? The job is yours
as long as you want it--if you'll st