ely what
they had done, he had hated Mary Hope Douglas more, because the hurt
was more personal, struck deep into a part of his soul that had grown
tender. But he could not hate her now--not when she lay there in his
arms with her tear-stained cheek against his heart, her eyes shut,
and with that pathetic droop to her lips. Gently he tucked back the
locks of hair that kept blowing across her forehead. Very tenderly,
with a whimsical pretense at self-pity, he upbraided her for the
trouble she was giving him.

"Must I go clear down to the ranch and pack up water in my hat, and
slosh it on your face? I'll do that, girl, if you don't open your eyes
and look at me. _You're_ not hurt; _are_ you hurt? You'd better wake
up and tell me, or I'll have to take you right up in my arms and carry
you all the way down to the house, and ride like heck for a doctor,
and--"

"Ye will not!" she retorted faintly, and unexpectedly he was looking
into her eyes, bluer than he had remembered them; troubled,
questioning--but stubborn against his suggestion. She moved uneasily,
and he lifted her to the bank beside him and put one arm behind her,
so that she leaned against him.

"Oh, very well--then I will not. You'll walk with me to the house, and
we'll let Belle--"

"I will not! Never in my life will I enter the house of a Lorrigan!"
Mary Hope brushed a palm against her forehead, straightened herself as
if she resented her weakness, wished to hold herself aloof from him.
She did not look at Lance, but stared across the narrow valley to the
sage-clothed bluff beyond.

"Why not? You've just come from the Lorrigans, haven't you?" Lance
studied her face. "You must have, or you wouldn't be on this trail."

"I went down to pay for the schoolhouse, since your father took the
piano away.--And he would not take the money, and he said he would
burn the house if I don't teach in it--and I'll die before ever I'll
open the door again, unless he takes the money. And he said if I left
the money he would throw it down the crevice yonder--and he would _do_
it! And do you think I'll be under any obligation to Tom Lorrigan? You
called my father hard, but your father is the hardest man that ever
lived. The Lorrigans shall _not_--"

Lance laughed, set her hat wrong side before on her head, tucked the
elastic band under her chin, laughed again when she pettishly removed
it and set the hat straight. "I wouldn't worry over the schoolhouse
right now--nor Tom L