t amuse myself down here. But--oh, look, look!
There's a cowboy--up on that high cliff!"

She started up, pointing at a horseman who was spurring furiously
along the side of the canyon after a runaway steer.

"Oh, look!" she cried again, as Hardy surveyed him indifferently. "He
is whirling his lasso. Oh! He has thrown it over that big cow's horns!
Goodness me, where is my horse? No, I am going on foot, then! Oh,
Lucy--Lucy dear," she screamed, waving her hand wildly, "do let me
have Pinto, just for a moment! All right--and Lucy--wasn't that Mr.
Creede?" She lingered on the ground long enough to give her an
ecstatic kiss and then swung up into the saddle. "Yes, I knew it--and
isn't he just perfectly grand on that big horse? Oh, I've been wanting
to see this all my life--and I owe it all to you!"

With a smile and a gay salutation, she leaned forward and galloped out
into the riot and confusion of the _rodeo_, skirting the edge of the
bellowing herd until she disappeared in the dust. And somehow, even by
the childlike obliviousness with which she scampered away, she
managed to convey a pang to her errant lover which clutched at his
heart for days.

And what days those were for Jefferson Creede! Deep and devious as was
his knowledge of men in the rough, the ways of a woman in love were as
cryptic to him as the poems of Browning. The first day that Miss Kitty
rode forth to be a cowboy it was the _rodeo_ boss, indulgent, but
aware of the tenderfoot's ability to make trouble, who soberly
assigned his fair disciple to guard a pass over which no cow could
possibly come. And Kitty, sensing the deceit, had as soberly amused
herself by gathering flowers among the rocks. But the next day, having
learned her first lesson, she struck for a job to ride, and it was the
giddy-headed lover who permitted her to accompany him--although not
from any obvious or selfish motives.

Miss Bonnair was the guest of the ranch, her life and welfare being
placed for the time in the keeping of the boss. What kind of a foreman
would it be who would turn her over to a hireling or intrust her
innocent mind to a depraved individual like Bill Lightfoot? And all
the decent cowmen were scared of her, so who was naturally indicated
and elected but Jefferson D. Creede?

There wasn't any branding at the round corral that night. The gather
was a fizzle, for some reason, though Miss Kitty rode Pinto to a
finish and killed a rattlesnake with Creede's own gun