ed resolution.

"How splendidly you ride, Mr. Douglass!" Her admiration was frank and
sincere. "You have that horse under perfect control, and yet, if I am
not mistaken, he is the worst of the three 'outlaws' which all the other
boys have declared unridable. Abbie told me this morning that everybody
is afraid of them."

"Abbie tells you a great many funny things, I reckon," he said, with an
evasive grin, and she laughed reminiscently. "Well, old Highball here
isn't just what you might call love-inspiring, and the boys have kind o'
passed him up; they have too many other good gentle horses in their
strings to justify my letting them take any chances. But as to their
being 'afraid' of him, why that's all bosh. Cowpunchers who are afraid
of any horse don't hold their jobs long, Miss Carter."

"Yet you, yourself, take the very chances that you shield your men
from." The tone was severe and distinctly reproachful, albeit her heart
beat with an understanding pride. He shrugged his shoulders
deprecatingly.

"Well, the brutes have got to earn their keep, and hay is high this
year."

"Yes, about two inches, on that part of the public domain where this
particular brute ranges," she said scornfully. "He has not been in the
corrals for over two years, as I happen to know. I believe you overheard
what Abbie said, and are riding him out of sheer perversity. You don't
like to be thought afraid, do you?"

"No, ma'am," he said, so humbly that she laughed despite her resolve.
Then, with a sudden burst of confidence, "You see, he threw me last week
and kind o' upset my conceit, and it's been on my conscience ever since.
We just had to come to some definite conclusion as to who is bossing
this job. He's going to be a good horse now."

"Now, as to hating being thought afraid," he went on after a short
silence, "I guess every man thinks that way. And yet there is something
that every man fears, that he is more or less afraid of, if he is only
honest enough to admit it."

"And what are you afraid of?" There was much of incredulity and more of
curiosity in her audacious question.

"Myself." He answered quietly; she was very sorry she had asked.

Just as they reached the main gate they were joined by Red McVey; who
rode up from the opposite direction. He was riding another of the
"outlaws" and Douglass noted that fact with a certain displeasure; his
orders had been explicit about those horses. Red nonchalantly drawled an
explanatio