while I get an appetite.
The doctor said I didn't need medicine--just the right kind of food, rest
and good air. I wouldn't have got them, maybe, but for you, and I suppose
I haven't been very grateful."

Her tone was low and wistful. A look she hadn't seen before--a kindly,
sympathetic look--leapt to his eyes and softened the harshness of his
features.

"Have you been sick, real sick?" he asked.

"Yes; clean played out, the doctor said."

"Then I am glad I brought you. We will make you well physically, anyway."

"And maybe the other will follow?"

"It will, if you will try to do right. Will you?"

"Sure. I've always tried--most always. I can't be very bad up at the top
of a hill, unless I get lonesome. You'd better tell that 'best woman' to
double-lock things. It's with stealing the same as with drinking--if
anything you crave is lying around handy, good-bye to good resolutions."

"I'll see to that. I'm a sheriff, remember."

"Look, sheriff!"

With a mocking smile, she held up a watch.

"I took that off you slick as anything when you passed the coffee. It was
like taking candy from a baby."

Anger at her nerve and chagrin that he had been so neatly tricked kept him
silent.

"It's not altogether a habit," she continued in mock apology; "it's a
gift."

"Jo got her number wrong," he thought. "She was just playing him with her
sad, nice, little-girl manner. For his sake, I'll see that they don't
meet. I wonder just why she is playing this role with me?"

"You might give me credit for returning your ticker," she said in abused
tone.

"I never knew but one other person," he said coolly, "that affected me as
unpleasantly as you do."

"Who was that?" she asked interestedly.

"A cow-puncher--Centipede Pete."

"Some name! Why don't you ask me my name, Kurt? Don't look so
contemptuous. I am going to tell you, because it doesn't sound like me.
It's Penelope."

"Oh!" he exclaimed, with something like a groan in his voice.

"Nobody can help her name," she complained. "Don't you like it? I kind of
thought it would suit you, because it doesn't sound like me. Sort of
suggests respectability, don't you think?"

"It was my mother's name," he replied tensely, as he walked a few paces
away.

Night that comes so fleetly in this country dropped like a veil.

The girl followed him.

"I didn't steal that--your mother's name, you know, Kurt," she said in an
odd, confiding voice. "They gave it to me, you see, an