er there--tenderfoot's fire. Well, it's only five miles,
and we can ride down that way. We'll go to your camp."

"Ye-es?" murmured Ashton, his ardent eyes on the girl. "Miss--er--Chuckie,
it is superfluous to remark that I shall vastly enjoy a cross-country
ride with you."

"Oh, really!" she replied.

Heedless of her ironical tone, he turned a supercilious glance on
Knowles. "Yes, and at the same time your papa and his hired man can
take advantage of the opportunity to deliver my veal."

"What's that?" growled the cowman, flushing hotly.

But the girl burst into such a peal of laughter that his scowl relaxed
to an uncertain smile.

"Well, what's the joke, honey?" he asked.

"Oh! oh! oh!" she cried, her blue eyes glistening with mirthful
tears. "Don't you see he's got you, Daddy? You didn't sell him his
meat on the hoof. You've got to dress and deliver his cutlets."

"By--James!" vowed Gowan. "Before I'll butcher for such a knock-kneed
tenderfoot I'll see him, in--"

"Hold your hawsses, Kid," put in Knowles. "The joke's on me. You go on
and look for that bunch of strays, if you want to. But I'm not going
to back up when Chuckie says I'm roped in."

Gowan looked fixedly at Ashton and the girl, swore under his breath,
and swung to the ground. He came down beside the calf with the
waddling step of one who has lived in the saddle from early childhood.
Knowles joined him, and they set to work on the calf without paying
any farther heed to the tenderfoot.

Ashton, after fastidiously wiping his hands on a wisp of grass, placed
his hunting knife in his belt and his rifle in its saddle sheath. He
next picked up his pistol, but after a single glance at the side
plate, smashed in by Gowan's first shot, he dropped the ruined weapon
and rather hurriedly mounted his pony.

The girl had faced away from the partly butchered carcass. As Ashton
rode around alongside, her pony started to walk away. Instead of
reining in, she glanced demurely at Ashton, and called over her
shoulder: "Daddy, we'll be riding on ahead. You and Kid have the
faster hawsses."

"All right," acquiesced Knowles, without pausing in his work.

Gowan said nothing; but he glanced up at the jaunty back of the
tenderfoot with a look of cold enmity.

CHAPTER III

QUEEN OF WHAT?

Heedless of the men behind him, Ashton rode off with his ardent gaze
fixed admiringly upon his companion. The more he looked at her the
more astonished and gratified