't, and
I threw the thing away half-made. It was a case where smoke wouldn't help
me.

If I hadn't made my chance any better, I knew I couldn't very well make it
worse; but there was mighty little comfort in that reflection. And what a
bluff I had put up! Carry her off and marry her? Lord knows I wanted to,
badly enough! But--

CHAPTER XIV.

Frosty Disappears.

On the way back to the ranch I overtook Frosty mooning along at a walk,
with his shoulders humped in the way a man has when he's thinking pretty
hard. I had left Frosty with the round-up, and I was pretty much surprised
to see him here. I didn't feel in the mood for conversation, even with
him; but, to be decent, I spurred up alongside and said hello, and where
had he come from? There was nothing in that for a man to get uppish about,
but he turned and actually glared at me.

"I might be an inquisitive son-of-a-gun and ask you the same thing," he
growled.

"Yes, you might," I agreed. "But, if you did, I'd be apt to tell you to
depart immediately for a place called Gehenna--which is polite for hell."

"Well, same here," he retorted laconically; and that ended our
conversation, though we rode stirrup to stirrup for eight miles.

I can't say that, after the first shock of surprise, I gave much time to
wondering what brought Frosty home. I took it he had had a row with the
wagon-boss. Frosty is an independent sort and won't stand a word from
anybody, and the wagon-boss is something of a bully. The gait they were
traveling, out there with the wagons, was fraying the nerves of the whole
bunch before I left. And that was all I thought about Frosty.

I had troubles of my own, about that time. I had put up my bluff, and
I kept wondering what I should do if Beryl King called me. There wasn't
much chance that she would, of course; but, still, she wasn't that kind
of girl who always does the conventional thing and the expected thing,
and I had seen a gleam in her eyes that, in a man's, I should call
deviltry, pure and simple. If I should meet her out somewhere, and she
even _looked_ a dare--I'll confess one thing: for a whole week I was
mighty shy of riding out where I would be apt to meet her; and you can
call me a coward if you like.

Still, I had schemes, plenty of them. I wanted her--Lord knows how
I wanted her!--and I got pretty desperate, sometimes. Once I saddled up
with the fixed determination of riding boldly--and melodramatically--into
King's H