--my Madonna!" he murmured in ardent adoration.

"Oh, please! when I've asked you not to!" she implored. "It is not
right! I--I am not!--" Tears glistened in her soft eyes. She bent over
to suppress a sob that might have awakened the sleeping infant.

Ashton gazed up at her, wonder and contrition mingling with his
deepening adoration. "Forgive me, Miss Chuckie! But I meant it--I feel
it! I never before felt this way towards any girl!... I know I have no
right to say anything now. I am a pennyless adventurer, a disgraced,
disinherited son, a mere cowpuncher apprentice; but if, by next
spring, I shall have--"

"Oh, see. They're getting such a long way ahead of us!" exclaimed the
girl, urging her pony to a faster gait.

The animal started forward with a suddenness that left Ashton behind.
He made no effort to regain his position beside the girl's stirrup.
Instead, he lagged farther and farther in the rear, his face crimson
with mortification and anger. As his chagrin deepened, his flush
became almost feverish and there was a suggestion of wildness in his
flashing eyes. It was as though his passion was intensifying some
injury to his brain caused by the concussion of the bullet on his
skull.

CHAPTER XXII

A REAL WOLF

When the loiterer came over the second ridge into view of the booming
chasm in the top of the plateau, he saw the others down near the
brink. The baby had been laid on a soft bed of pine needles, and Blake
was leading the ladies down to look over into the abyss, one on each
arm.

Ashton's chagrin flared into jealous hate. He felt certain that the
girl was quite capable of strolling along the extreme edge of the
precipice without a trace of giddiness. Yet now she was clinging to
Blake even more closely than was Genevieve. There was more than
apprehension in the clasp of her little brown hand on the engineer's
shoulder. Her cheek brushed his sleeve.

The anger of the onlooker was so intense that he did not see Gowan
riding towards him from the left. The puncher dismounted and came
forward, his cold gaze fixed on Ashton's face.

"So you're beginning to savvy it, too," he remarked.

Ashton confronted him, vainly attempting to mask his telltale look
and color with a show of hauteur. "I never discuss personal matters
with acquaintances of your stamp," he said.

"That's too bad," coolly deplored Gowan. "Maybe you've heard the
saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face."

"What do