tell me the whole story. But he lied about some of it, for he told me
you were dead."

"He is a born liar," the girl commented. "Well, to get on with my story.
Anderson, or Hardman, as he now calls himself, except when he uses his
stage name of Cavallado, went into the show business and took me with
him. When I was a little bit of a girl he used to use me for all sorts
of things, such as a target for his knife throwing and to sell medicine
to the audience. Lots of people would buy because I was such a morsel of
a creature, and I suppose he found me a drawing card. We moved all over
the country for years. I hated the life. But what could I do?"

"You poor little lamb," murmured the man. "And when did you find out who
you were?"

"I heard you talking to him the night you took him back to Epitaph, and
then I began to piece things together. You remember you went over the
whole story with him again just before we reached the town."

"And you knew it was you I was talking about?"

"I didn't know. But when you mentioned the locket and the map, I knew.
Then it seemed to me that since this man Henderson had lost so many
years of his life trying to save me I must do something for him. So I
asked you to take me with you. I had been a boy so long I didn't think
you would know the difference, and you did not. If I hadn't dressed as a
girl that time you would not know yet."

"Maybe, and maybe not," he smiled. "Point is, I do know, and it makes a
heap of difference to me."

"Yes, I know," she said hurriedly. "I'm more trouble now."

"That ain't it," he was beginning, when a thought brought him up short.
As the daughter of Webb Mackenzie this girl was no longer a penniless
outcast, but the heiress of one-half interest in the big Rocking Chair
Ranch, with its fifteen thousand head of cattle. As the first he had
a perfect right to love her and to ask her to marry him, but as the
latter--well, that was quite a different affair. He had not a cent to
bless himself with outside of his little ranch and his salary, and,
though he might not question his own motives under such circumstances,
there would be plenty who would question them for him. He was an
independent young man as one could find in a long day's ride, and his
pride rose up to padlock his lips.

She looked across at him in shy surprise, for all the eagerness had
in an instant been sponged from his face. With a hard, impassive
countenance he dropped the hand he had seized