had started to her feet, crying quickly:

"Gone back! Where?"

"To Harte's. A man knifed his horse back there." He stopped, lighted
his pipe, and then said slowly, with much deep thoughtfulness, "If I
was that man I'd ride some tonight! I'd keep right on ridin' until
I'd put about seven thousand miles between me an' Buck Thornton. An'
then ... well, then, I guess I'd jest naturally dig a hole an' crawl
in it so deep nothin' but my gun stuck out!"

"What did he say?" she asked breathlessly.

"That's jest it, Miss. He didn't say much!"

CHAPTER XI

THE BEDLOE BOYS

All thoughts of denouncing Buck Thornton before these people fled before
the girl had followed the rancher's wife into the cabin. They spoke of
him only in tones warm with friendship and with something more than mere
friendship, an admiration that was tinged with respect. They had known
him since first he had come into this country, and although that had
been only a little more than a year ago, they had grown to know him as
men and women in these far-out places come to know each other, swiftly,
intimately.

He was a favourite topic of conversation and they talked of him
naturally, readily, and Mrs. Smith, fluently. She recounted, not
guessing how eagerly the girl was listening to every word, many an
episode which in the aggregate had given him the reputation he bore
throughout these wild miles of cattle land, the reputation of a man who
was hard, hard as rock "on the outside," as she put it, hard inside,
too, when they drove him to it, but naturally as soft-hearted as a baby.
She wished _she_ had a boy like him! Why, when she and John hit hard
luck, last year, what with the cattle getting diseased first and her and
John getting laid up next, flat of their backs with the grip, that man
was an angel in britches and spurs if there ever was an angel in
anything! He'd nursed them and cooked for them, and lifted her out of
her bed while he made it up himself, just as smooth and nice as you
could have done, Miss. And he rode clean into town for a doctor, and
brought him out and a lot of store stuff that was nice for sick folks to
eat. And he'd paid the doctor, too, and laughed and said he'd come some
day and borry the money back when he got busted playing poker!

"And then, all of a sudden, when you'd have thought he was soft that way
clean through," she went on, her eyes blazing now at the memory of it,
"them Bedloe boys come over lookin' for trou