th vehemence. "He sure
did! Why, that girl's rid real horses since she was the size of a pair
of boots. Luke took her everywhere he went, up in the mountains, over
the Big Ridge, down valley-ways, into town when he went off on his
yearly. And they say Luke wasn't no poky rider, either. You've rode
his string, Bud? What are those for horses, huh?"

"I'm a little particular when it comes to a saddle-horse," Bud
admitted. "But I never asked any better than old Sanford's string."

"You hear him!" said Carson. "Well, that Judy girl has rid horses like
them for a dozen years. And her dad--anyway, folks say so down on the
river--showed her his way to ride and his way to shoot and his way to
play cards! I guess," and he spoke with slow thoughtfulness, "that
she's a real chip off'n the old block. It's my guess number two that
she ain't just shooting off her face promiscuous when she says there's
something crooked in the deal Trevors has been handing her. And, third
bet, there's most likely going to be seven kinds of hell popping around
this end of the woods for a spell."

"What are you doing about it, Carson?" asked the man whose unusually
vacuous expression gave him his name of Poker Face. "Stick on the job
or quit?"

"Me?" Carson sought a match, and when he had found it, held it long in
his grimy fingers, staring at it thoughtfully. "Me stay an' let a
she-girl boss me? Well, it ain't the play a man might look to me to
make, an' I ain't saying it's the trick I'd do every day in the week.
But here there's some things to set a man scratching his head: she's a
winner, all right, an' I'm the first man to up an' say so. She's got
the sand an' she's got the savvy. Take 'em together an' they make what
you call gumption. Sure it ain't no woman's job to step in an' run an
outfit like this one; a woman ain't nacherally cut out for that sort of
thing any more'n a man is to darn socks an' drink tea with lemon in it.
Again, tipping it over so's you can look at the other side, like a fair
man ought to, what's she going to do? She lands here sudden, striking
all four feet in a mess of trouble. She grabs holt of things, seeing
they belong to her in a way, an' seeing she's fed Trevors his time. I
might go trailing my luck some other-where, if I did the first fool
thing that plopped into my nut. But playing fair, I'm going to stick
an' do my damnedest to see Luke Sanford's girl put up her scrap. Yes,
sir."

"What di