nge," interrupted Ellen, with scornful laugh. She had
found her defense. In hurting him she could hide her own hurt.
"Thinking me so good in spite of-- Ha-ha! And I said I'd been kissed
before!"

"Yes, in spite of everything," he said.

Ellen could not look at him as he loomed over her. She felt a wild
tumult in her heart. All that crowded to her lips for utterance was
false.

"Yes--kissed before I met you--and since," she said, mockingly. "And I
laugh at what y'u call love, Jean Isbel."

"Laugh if you want--but believe it was sweet, honorable--the best in
me," he replied, in deep earnestness.

"Bah!" cried Ellen, with all the force of her pain and shame and hate.

"By Heaven, you must be different from what I thought!" exclaimed
Isbel, huskily.

"Shore if I wasn't, I'd make myself.... Now, Mister Jean Isbel, get on
your horse an' go!"

Something of composure came to Ellen with these words of dismissal, and
she glanced up at him with half-veiled eyes. His changed aspect
prepared her for some blow.

"That's a pretty black horse."

"Yes," replied Ellen, blankly.

"Do you like him?"

"I--I love him."

"All right, I'll give him to you then. He'll have less work and kinder
treatment than if I used him. I've got some pretty hard rides ahead of
me."

"Y'u--y'u give--" whispered Ellen, slowly stiffening. "Yes. He's
mine," replied Isbel. With that he turned to whistle. Spades threw up
his head, snorted, and started forward at a trot. He came faster the
closer he got, and if ever Ellen saw the joy of a horse at sight of a
beloved master she saw it then. Isbel laid a hand on the animal's neck
and caressed him, then, turning back to Ellen, he went on speaking: "I
picked him from a lot of fine horses of my father's. We got along
well. My sister Ann rode him a good deal.... He was stolen from our
pasture day before yesterday. I took his trail and tracked him up
here. Never lost his trail till I got to your ranch, where I had to
circle till I picked it up again."

"Stolen--pasture--tracked him up heah?" echoed Ellen, without any
evidence of emotion whatever. Indeed, she seemed to have been turned
to stone.

"Trackin' him was easy. I wish for your sake it 'd been impossible,"
he said, bluntly.

"For my sake?" she echoed, in precisely the same tone,

Manifestly that tone irritated Isbel beyond control. He misunderstood
it. With a hand far from gentle he pushed her bent head back so he
cou