ngling gayly.

Knowles followed him, shaking his head. The girl had been gazing at
Ashton with an expression that varied from sympathetic commiseration
to contemptuous pity. As her adopted father and Gowan mounted, she
rode over to them.

"Go on," she said. "I'll overtake you as soon as I've watered my
hawss."

"You're not going to speak to that kettle of mush again, Miss
Chuckie," remonstrated Gowan.

"Yes, I am, Kid, and you know you wouldn't stop me if you could. He
needs it. I'm glad you smashed his pistol. A rifle is not so handy."

Knowles stared over the bushes at the huddled figure on the ground.
"Look here, Chuckie, you can't mean that?"

"Yes," she insisted. "He is ready to do it right now, unless someone
throws him a rope and hauls him out of the slough."

"Lot of fuss over a tenderfoot you never saw before today," grumbled
Gowan.

"That's not like you, Kid," she reproached. "Besides, you don't want
the trouble of digging a grave. It would have to be deep, to keep out
the coyotes. Daddy, you're forgetting the veal."

"So I am," agreed the cowman. "Ride on, Kid. You'll be carrying most
weight."

The puncher reluctantly wheeled his horse and started down the bank of
the dry stream. Knowles unfastened the hind quarters of veal from
behind the cantle of his saddle, lifted them into a fork of one of the
low trees, and rode off after Gowan, folding up his blood-stained
slicker.

The girl at once slipped from her pony and walked quietly around to
the drooping, despairing man.

"Mr. Ashton," she softly began, "they have gone. I have stayed to find
out if there is anything I can do."

She paused for him to reply. His shoulders quivered, but he remained
silent. She went on soothingly: "You are all unstrung. The shock was
too sudden. It must have been a terrible one! Won't you tell me about
it? Perhaps that will make you feel better."

"As if anything could when I am ruined, utterly ruined!" he moaned.

"But how? Please tell me," she urged.

Slowly he raised his haggard face and looked up at her. There could be
no question but that she was full of sincere sympathy and concern for
him. Her eyes shone upon him with all the motherly tenderness that any
good woman, however young, has in her heart for those who suffer.

"It's all in this--this letter," he muttered brokenly. "Expected my
remittance in it--Got ruin! ruin!"

"It had been opened," suggested the girl. "Perhaps those who took your
outfit a