m. She nodded toward the sill.

"That makes an improvement already," she said.

"Ye-es?" he said, with an irritating drawl.

There was a silence; she stood, regarding his back, a faint smile on
her face.

"I want to compliment you on your judgment of horses," she persisted,
in an attempt to make him talk; "the ones you bought are fine."

Calumet drove a wedge home viciously. But he did not answer.

"I've been checking up your other purchases," she went on; "and I find
that you followed the list I gave you faithfully."

He turned and looked up. "Look here," he said; "I got what you wanted,
didn't I? There's no use of gettin' mush headed about it. I'd have
blowed the money just as quick, if I'd wanted to."

"But you didn't."

"Because you didn't want me to, I reckon?" he sneered.

"No. Because you wanted to be fair."

He had not known what sort of an answer he had expected from her, but
the one he got embarrassed him. He felt a reluctant pleasure over the
knowledge that she had faith in him, but mingling with this was a rage
against himself over his surrender. When she turned from him and
walked over to Dade, speaking to him in a low voice, he could not have
told which affected him most, his rage against himself or his
disappointment over her abrupt leave-taking. She irritated him, but
somehow he got a certain pleasure out of that irritation--which was a
wholly unsatisfying and mystifying paradox. He covertly watched Dade
during her talk with him and discovered that he did not like the way
the young man looked at her; he was entirely too familiar even if he
was a friend of the family. He saw, too, that Betty seemed to be an
entirely different person when talking to Dade. For one thing she
seemed natural, which she didn't seem when talking to him. Until he
saw her talking with Dade he had been able to see nothing in her manner
but restraint and stiff formality, but figuratively, when in Dade's
presence she seemed to melt--she was gracious, smiling, cordial.

Betty's attitude toward him during the noon meal puzzled him much.
Some subtle change had come over her. Several times he surprised her
looking at him, and at these times he was certain there was approval in
her glances, though perhaps the approval was mingled with something
else--speculation, he thought.

But whatever it was, he had not seen it before. Had he known that Dade
had told her about the incident of the Red Dog Saloon he would h