my father--after all
this time--They agreed not to tell him. Yet he has found out. That
letter, up at the waterhole--it was from his lawyers. He had cut me
off--branded me as an outcast."

"Without waiting to hear your side--without asking you to explain? How
unjust! how unfair!" cried Isobel.

Ashton winced. "I--I told you I--my record was against me. But I was
his son--he had no right to brand me as a--a thief! My valet read the
letter. He must have told the guide--the scoundrels!"

Tears of chagrin gathered in the young man's dark eyes. He bit his lip
until the blood ran.

"O-o-oh!" sighed the girl. "It's all been frightfully unjust! You
haven't had fair play! I shall tell Mr. Blake."

"No, not him!--not him!" Ashton's voice was almost shrill. "All I wish
is to slip away, before they see me."

"You don't mean, run away?" she said, quietly placing her little
gauntlet-gloved hand on his arm. "You're not going to run away,
Lafe."

"What else?" he asked, his eyes dark with bitter despair. "Would you
have me return, to be booted off the range when they tell your
father?"

"Just wait and see," she replied, gazing at him with a reassuring
smile. "You've proved yourself a right smart puncher--for a
tenderfoot. You're in the West, the good old-style West, where it's a
man's present record that counts; not what he has been or what he has
done. No, you're not going to run. You're going to face it out--and
going to stay to learn your new profession of puncher and--_man_!"

"But they will not wish to associate with me."

"Yes, they will," she predicted. "I shall see to that."

He took heart a little from her cheery, positive assurance. "Well, if
you insist, I shall not go until they show--"

"They'll not recognize you at first. That will give me a chance to
speak before they can say anything disagreeable. I'm sure Mr. Blake
will understand."

"But--Genevieve?"

"If she married him when he was as rough as you say, and if he agrees
to let bygones be bygones, you need have no fear of Mrs. Blake. Only
be sure to go into raptures over the baby. Tell her it's the perfect
image of its father."

"What if it isn't?" objected Ashton gloomily.

She dimpled. "One must allow for the difference in age; and there's
always some resemblance--each must have a mouth and eyes and ears and
a nose."

He caught himself on the verge of laughter. Her eyes were fixed upon
him, pure and honest and dancing with mirth. A sudden flood