he told
himself as he rode away. "Pickett wouldn't have got fresh, an' Kelso
would have kept himself mighty shady. We'd have fought it out, square--me
an' Masten. I reckon I didn't kill Pickett and Kelso; it was Masten that
done it."

He came, after a while, to the rock upon whick he had found Ruth lying on
the night of the accident. And he sat and looked long at the grass plot
where he had laid her when she had fainted.

"She looked like an angel, layin' there," he reminded himself, his eyes
eloquent. "She's too blamed good for that sneakin' dude."

He came upon the ruined boot, and memories grimmed his lips. "It's
busted--like my dreams," he said, surveying it, ripped and rotting. "I
reckon this is as good a place as any," he added, looking around him.

And he dismounted, led Patches out of sight behind some high bushes that
grew far back from the rocks; came back, stretched himself out on the
grass plot, pulled his hat over his eyes and yielded to his gloomy
thoughts. But after he had lain there a while, he spoke aloud:

"He'll come this way, if he comes at all."

With the memory of Randerson's threat always before him, "if I ever lay
eyes on you ag'in, I'll go gunnin' for you," Masten rode slowly and
watchfully. For he had felt that the words had not been idle ones, and it
had been because of them that he had hired Kelso. And he went toward the
ranchhouse warily, much relieved when he passed the bunkhouse, to find
that Randerson was apparently absent. He intended to make this one trip,
present to Ruth his excuses for staying away, and then go back to Chavis'
shack, there to remain out of Randerson's sight, until he could devise
another plan that, he hoped, would put an end to the cowpuncher who was
forever tormenting him.

His excuses had been accepted by Ruth, for she was in the mood to restore
him to that spot in her heart that Randerson had come very near to
occupy. She listened to him calmly, and agreed, without conscious
emotion, to his proposal that they ride, on the Monday following, to
Lazette, to marry. She had reopened the subject a little wearily, for now
that Randerson was hopeless she wanted to have the marriage over with as
soon as possible. She saw now, that it had been the vision of Randerson,
always prominent in her mind, that had caused her to put off the date of
her marriage to Masten when he had mentioned it before. That vision had
vanished now, and she did not care how soon she became Ma