know about selling. But she is coming to my ranch."

"On a visit to Jean?"

"No, she is going to marry me."

The girl stared at him. He saw a flood of color rush to her cheeks and
recede, leaving her face white. Her strong hand gripped the saddle horn
hard.

"She is--going--to marry you!" she said in a voice little more than a
whisper.

"Yes," Angus replied, "why shouldn't she? She is too good for me, I
know, but I hope you don't think, like your father, that I am not fit to
marry her."

Kathleen French smiled with stiff lips.

"What rot!" she said. "I didn't know my father thought anything of the
kind, and certainly I don't. I hope you will be very happy. When did it
happen?"

Angus told her, but it was a subject on which he did not care to
enlarge. Where the trail forked to the French ranch they parted and he
rode on. But if he had turned back and ridden half a mile on the other
trail, and two hundred yards to the right behind a thick growth of
cottonwoods, he would have seen a girl lying on the ground, her face
buried in her arms, while a big, bay horse with a sweat-dried coat stood
by flicking the flies and regarding his mistress wonderingly.

CHAPTER XXVI

CONSPIRACY

On the chance that, after all, water might be got on Faith's ranch,
Angus had his own levels checked by a surveyor. The result was to
confirm them. Thus most of the level land was undoubtedly worthless for
agricultural purposes. As for the rest of the property, it was hill and
coulee and included the round mountain. Angus had ridden over it and
hunted through it and he thought he had nothing to learn about it. He
dismissed it with contempt. The only reasonable explanation of French's
desire to purchase seemed to be that he was acting for Braden and that
Braden had some purchaser in view. That being so, it would pay to hold
out for a better offer.

So far as his own affairs were concerned, the outlook was not promising.
His loan applications were turned down cold by various loan companies,
as Judge Riley had feared. And one day he received a formal demand for
payment of mortgage and note, coupled with an intimation that, failing
immediate payment, legal proceedings would follow.

"Yes, I thought this was about due," Judge Riley said when Angus showed
him the letter of Mr. Braden's lawyers. "There are no grounds for
defending the actions, that I know of."

"The money is owing, no doubt about it. And I can't pay it."

"Then i