I don't think I
am--very! But it's all so new and unexpected, you know. Do people around
here always shoot in that--well--unpremeditated fashion?"

They laughed together.

"Excuse me," he said. "I didn't realize the shot might startle you even
more than the wildcat. It seems I'm not fit to have charge of a lady. I
told you I was a roughneck."

"You're taking care of me beautifully," said Margaret Earle, loyally,
"and I'm glad to get used to shots if that's the thing to be expected
often."

Just then they came to the top of the low, rolling hill, and ahead in
the darkness there gleamed a tiny, wizened light set in a blotch of
blackness. Under the great white stars it burned a sickly red and seemed
out of harmony with the night.

"There we are!" said the Boy, pointing toward it. "That's the
bunk-house. You needn't be afraid. Pop Wallis 'll be snoring by this
time, and we'll come away before he's about in the morning. He always
sleeps late after he's been off on a bout. He's been gone three days,
selling some cattle, and he'll have a pretty good top on."

The girl caught her breath, gave one wistful look up at the wide, starry
sky, a furtive glance at the strong face of her protector, and
submitted to being lifted down to the ground.

Before her loomed the bunk-house, small and mean, built of logs, with
only one window in which the flicker of the lanterns menaced, with
unknown trials and possible perils for her to meet.

CHAPTER IV

When Margaret Earle dawned upon that bunk-room the men sat up with one
accord, ran their rough, red hands through their rough, tousled hair,
smoothed their beards, took down their feet from the benches where they
were resting. That was as far as their etiquette led them. Most of them
continued to smoke their pipes, and all of them stared at her
unreservedly. Such a sight of exquisite feminine beauty had not come to
their eyes in many a long day. Even in the dim light of the smoky
lanterns, and with the dust and weariness of travel upon her, Margaret
Earle was a beautiful girl.

"That's what's the matter, father," said her mother, when the subject of
Margaret's going West to teach had first been mentioned. "She's too
beautiful. Far too beautiful to go among savages! If she were homely and
old, now, she might be safe. That would be a different matter."

Yet Margaret had prevailed, and was here in the wild country. Now,
standing on the threshold of the log cabin, she read, i