ew minutes into each other's society there
was a marked constraint upon them. Never had the man lost the stinging
sense of his offense against her; never had Judith condescended to be
anything but cool and brief with him. While no open reference was made
to what was past, still the memory of it must lie in each heart, and
though Lee held his eyes level with hers and drank deep of the warm
loveliness of her, he told himself angrily that he was beneath her
contempt. The chivalry within him, so great and essential a part of
the man's nature, was a wounded thing, hurt by his own act. The old
feeling of camaraderie which had sprung up between them at times was
gone now; they could no longer be "pardners" as they had been that
night in the old cabin.

He told himself curtly that he did not regret that; that now it was
inevitable that they should be less than strangers since they could not
be more than friends. That the girl was ready to forgive him, that she
had never been as harsh with him as he was himself, that there was a
golden, delicious possibility that she should feel as he did--so mad an
idea had not come to Bud Lee, horse foreman.

A few days after Marcia's arrival there came to the ranch a letter
which was addressed:

Pollock Hampton, Esq.,
General Manager,
Blue Lake Ranch.

It was from Doan, Rockwell & Haight, big stock-buyers of Sacramento,
submitting an unsolicited order for a surprisingly large shipment of
cattle and horses. The price offered was ridiculously low, even for
this season of low figures due to the fact that many overstocked
ranches were throwing their beef-cattle and range horses on the market.
So low, in fact, that Judith's first surmise when Hampton brought it to
her was that the typist taking the company's dictation had made an
error.

Judith tossed the note into the waste-basket. Then she retrieved it to
frown at it wonderingly, and, finally, to file it. It began by having
for her no significance worthy of speculation. It soon began to puzzle
her. Finally, it faintly disturbed her.

Here were two points of interest. First: Doan, Rockwell & Haight was
the company to which Bayne Trevors, when general manager, had made many
a sacrifice sale. Because the Blue Lake had knocked down to them
before, did they still count confidently upon continued mismanagement?
Surely they must know that the management of the ranch had changed.
And this brought her to the second poin