y at the
animal's neck. Then the sailor sprang into his own saddle and, amid
the insulting shouts and jeers of the assembled ranchmen, the unfortunate
Easterner rode out of the mission courtyard--face backward.

CHAPTER XII

A PROJECTED JOURNEY

Captain Jess screamed and ran forward, but her outstretched hands could
not reach her guest, already borne many rods away. Then she faced the
jeering men, with an anger she had not believed it possible that she
could ever feel toward her beloved "boys."

"Shame on you! Shame on you, every one! How dared you? And I thought--I
thought--you were gentlemen!"

With arms tightly folded over her breast, as if to hold back the
conflicting emotions within it, her blue eyes flashing, her small foot
stamping, she defied and condemned them all.

A little laughter answered her, but this sound died speedily, and awkward
glances shifted among the faces of the men. They were sorry to have
offended the "Little One," and to have her indignant with them was
a new and unpleasant situation, but they were not in the least degree
sorry that they had administered some punishment to the maligner of
their master. Most of them would have wished this punishment more severe,
but the promise Jessica had exacted from them before this interview had
prevented.

One by one, as they had first come upon the scene they retreated from
it, though Joe Dean lingered a moment to ask:

"Won't you come share our breakfast, captain, and so bury the hatchet?"

She sadly shook her head. All her anger left her as suddenly as it had
arisen, and there remained in her mind but one thought--there were
people in the world who believed her father had been a thief. That was
the hard and bitter fact which nothing could soften. The former trouble
about the lost title deed, and the probable loss of her home seemed as
nothing to this new distress. How was she to face it? How disprove
it? How save her beloved mother from ever hearing it?

There came a step beside her and a strong arm about her shoulders. It
was Ephraim Marsh; erect, resolute, protecting.

"Take it easy, daughter. It's you and me together'll nail this lie
on the door of the man who started it. There's a blue sky up yonder
and a solid earth down here. I'm good to trust the one and tread the
other for forty miles a day yet, spite of my white head. If I have to
travel this old State over its hundred and fifty-six thousand square
miles, before I clinch t