ake a clean-up soon as I get solid on my feet."

"And Phil? What if we catch him in the gather, and find him wearing the
bad-man brand?"

Keller's eyes met those of his friend. "There never was a rodeo where
some cattle didn't slip through unnoticed, Jim."

CHAPTER XXII

SURRENDER

The weeks slipped away and brought with them healing to the wounded man
at Seven Mile. He moved from the bed where at first he had spent his
days to a lounge in the living room, and there, from the bay window, he
could look out at the varied life of the cattle country. Men came and
went in the dust of the drag drive, their approach heralded by the bawl
of thirsty cattle. Others cantered up and bought tobacco and canned
goods. The stage arrived twice a week with its sack of mail, and always
when it did Public Opinion gathered upon the porch of the store, as of
yore. Phil Sanderson he saw often, Yeager sometimes, and once or twice
he caught a glimpse of Healy's saturnine face.

A scarcity of beef and a sharp rise in prices brought the round-up
earlier than usual. Every spare man was called upon to help comb the
hills for the wild steers that ran the wooded water-sheds, as untamed as
the deer and the lynx. Even the storekeeper, Benwell, was pressed into
the service. 'Rastus and the nester were the only men about the place,
the deputy sheriff having been recalled to Noches on the collapse of
Healy's story.

The removal to a distance of the rest of her admirers did not have the
effect of throwing Keller alone with Phyllis more often. The young
mistress of the ranch invited Bess Purdy to visit her, and now he never
saw her except in the presence of her other guest.

Bess took him in at once, evidencing her approval of him by entering
upon a spirited war of repartee with him. She had not been in the house
twenty-four hours before she had unbosomed herself of a derisive
confidence.

"I don't believe you're a bank robber, at all! I don't believe you are
even a rustler! You're a false alarm!"

Both Keller and Miss Sanderson smiled at the daring of the girl's
challenge. But the former defended himself with apparent heat.

"What makes you think so? Why should you undermine my reputation with
such an assertion? You can't talk that way about me without proving it,
Miss Purdy."

"Well, I don't. You don't _look_ it."

"I can't help that. You ask Mr. Healy. He'll tell you I am."

"You'll need a better witness than Brill before I'll b