g careless stride. A
handsome devil, as handsome in his own way as the Kid in his, as defiant
an insolence in his smiling eyes, as cool an assurance and a vague added
charm which was not so readily classified.

The two men came to the door. She heard Pollard greet them, calling
them by name, and thus learned that one was Cole Dalton, the sheriff,
one Broderick. Then there came up to her the hum of voices from her
uncle's office, the heavy, rasping voice which she was certain belonged
to the thicker-set man, the light, careless pleasant tones of the taller
man. She found herself listening, not for the words which were lost in
the indistinct hum, but to the qualities of tone, idly speculating as to
which man was the sheriff, which Broderick. She wondered if now they
were going to arrest Buck Thornton and if Broderick were a deputy? And
again she hated herself with a quick spurt of contemptuous indignation
that she allowed a feeling of sympathy for the tall cattleman to slip
into her heart.

For a long time the low toned conversation in the room below her
continued. At first it was her uncle who did the greater part of the
talking, his utterances at once emphatic and yet guarded. She had the
uneasy feeling that the tones were hushed less because of Mrs. Riddell
whom she could hear clattering with her pots and pans in the kitchen,
than because of herself. A little hurt, half angry that he should think
of her as a possible eavesdropper, she took up her book again, turning
the pages impatiently in search of the place which she had a great deal
of trouble in finding since she had understood so little of what she had
read that day. And even then one half of her mind was on the men below
as she wondered why they should not want her to know what it was they
said.

Evidently Pollard had finished what he had to say. She supposed that he
had been telling them of his loss and her robbery. Then the heavy,
rasping voice, Cole Dalton's she was right in guessing it to be, as
guarded as Pollard's had been, broke in and for several minutes it was
the only sound that came to her, save twice when a low laugh from
Broderick interrupted. She frowned at that; to her it seemed that in
this stern discussion which had for theme crime and retribution there
was no place for a man's laughter; even then her dislike for Ben
Broderick had begun.

Then Cole Dalton had finished and Broderick was talking. It was as
though each man in turn were making