away she was making excuses for him. "He
is very impatient of restraint," she was thinking, "and probably I
misjudged him, he is so different from the others." Nevertheless a
sudden flash of anger kindled in her eyes; then, strangely enough, she
smiled softly into the starlight.

She had yet two hours to wait and the balmy stillness of the night was
conducive to reflection. Her thoughts went back to the scenes of her
former life and the people she had known in that vastly different
environment. Men had been plentiful. In that effete land of worrying
necessities the shrine of beauty, when allied with reputed wealth, has
many devotees; the Carters were known to be "cattle kings." She was
familiar with many types, and with the arrogance of all youthful women,
deemed herself an infallible judge of men and their motives. There had
been men of parts among her acquaintances: soldiers, merchants,
clergymen, writers, financiers, and fops galore. Some she had respected,
a few she had admired, many she had tolerated, but none she had loved.
She was generous in her estimation of their worth and strove to enthuse
over their many excellences, but to her irritation, suddenly realized
that she was weighing them all against a gray-eyed man in a fire-rent
shirt, with smoke-grimed face and singed hair.

She turned uneasily in her hammock, catching through the wistaria a
glimpse of the open door of the dimly-lit bunkhouse. She could see the
intermittent glow of Red's cigarette, and the glisten of the polished
steel in the holster, hung carelessly on his bed-post. Suddenly she was
infected by the magnificent extravagance of this western life, this
queer jumble of loyalty, pride, poverty, sacrifice, sin, strength,
suffering, fortitude and malignity. She felt a fierce satisfaction in
living where men begged for the privilege of killing the enemies of
their friends, and she felt almost grateful to Red for his savage
appreciation of the courage which had transformed Douglass from his
dearest foe into his dearest friend. She had even a greater reason to be
grateful to him, had she only known it.

"He must not leave," she said with a fine determination. "It will check
his career--and we owe so much to him. I am a super-sensitive little
fool and I will make amends. Bobbie said we must 'make it up to him' and
I will. He is a gentleman, and he will not make it hard for me."
Comforted by her intuitive assurance of that fact she laid her soft
chee