about his neck, drew his head down as
if to whisper her confidence in his ear. Her breath was on his cheek,
his heart was afire in one foolish leap. She put up her lips as if to
kiss him, and he, reeling in the ecstasy of his proximity to her radiant
body, bent nearer to take what she seemed to offer.

She drew back, her hand interposed before his eager lips, shaking her
head, denying him prettily.

"In the morning, I'll tell you all in the morning when I meet you to
drive the cattle over," she said. "Don't say a word--I'll not take no
for my answer." She turned quickly to her horse and swung lightly into
the saddle. From this perch she leaned toward him, her hand on his
shoulder, her lips drawing him in their fiery lure again. "In the
morning--in the morning--you can kiss me, Duke!"

With that word, that promise, she turned and galloped away.

It was late afternoon, and Lambert had faced back toward the ranchhouse,
troubled by all that he could not understand in that morning's meeting,
thrilled and fired by all that was sweet to remember, when he met a man
who came riding in the haste of one who had business ahead of him that
could not wait. He was riding one of Vesta Philbrook's horses, a
circumstance that sharpened Lambert's interest in him at once.

As they closed the distance between them, Lambert keeping his hand in
the easy neighborhood of his gun, the man raised his hand, palm forward,
in the Indian sign of peace. Lambert saw that he wore a shoulder holster
which supported two heavy revolvers. He was a solemn-looking man with a
narrow face, a mustache that crowded Taterleg's for the championship, a
buckskin vest with pearl buttons. His coat was tied on the saddle at his
back.

"I didn't steal this horse," he explained with a sorrowful grin as he
drew up within arm's length of Lambert, "I requisitioned it. I'm the
sheriff."

"Yes, sir?" said Lambert, not quite taking him for granted, no
intention of letting him pass on with that explanation.

"Miss Philbrook said I'd run across you up this way."

The officer produced his badge, his commission, his card, his
letterhead, his credentials of undoubted strength. On the proof thus
supplied, Lambert shook hands with him.

"I guess everybody else in the county knows me--this is my second term,
and I never was taken for a horse thief before," the sheriff said,
solemn as a crow, as he put his papers away.

"I'm a stranger in this country, I don't know anybody,