on
County ever had."

The little man laughed feebly. "You will have your joke, Dave, but I
know mighty well you wouldn't shoot me. You got no legal right to
detain me."

"I'd have to wrastle that out with the coroner afterward, I expect,"
replied Dingwell casually. "Not thinking of leaving me, are you?"

"Oh, no! No. Not at all. I was just kinder talking."

It was seven miles from Lonesome Park to Battle Butte. Fox kept up a
kind of ingratiating whine whenever the road was so rough that the
horses had to fall into a walk. He was not sure whether when it came
to the pinch he could summon nerve to try a bolt, but he laid himself
out to establish friendly relations. Dingwell, reading him like a
primer, cocked a merry eye at the man and grinned.

About a mile from Battle Butte they caught up with another rider, a
young woman of perhaps twenty. The dark, handsome face that turned to
see who was coming would have been a very attractive one except for its
look of sulky rebellion. From the mop of black hair tendrils had
escaped and brushed the wet cheeks flushed by the sting of the rain.
The girl rode splendidly. Even the slicker that she wore could not
disguise the flat back and the erect carriage of the slender body.

Dingwell lifted his hat. "Good-evenin', Miss Rutherford."

She nodded curtly. Her intelligent eyes passed from his to those of
Fox. A question and an answer, neither of them in words, flashed forth
and back between Beulah Rutherford and the little man.

Dave took a hand in the line-up as they fell into place beside each
other. "Hold on, Fox. You keep to the left of the road. I'll ride
next you with Miss Rutherford on my right." He explained to the girl
with genial mockery his reason. "Chet and I are such _tillicums_ we
hate to let any one get between us."

Bluntly the girl spoke out, "What's the matter?"

The cattleman lifted his eyebrows in amused surprise. "Why, nothing at
all, I reckon. There's nothing the matter, is there, Chet?"

"I've got an engagement to meet your father and he won't let me go,"
blurted out Fox.

"When did you make that hurry-up appointment, Chet?" laughed Dingwell.
"You didn't seem in no manner of hurry when you was lying in the
mesquite back there at Lonesome Park."

"You've got no business to keep him here. He can go if he wants to,"
flashed the young woman.

"You hear that, Chet. You can go if you want to," murmured Dave with
good-natured iron