m over there," said Swan. "I come over to see if you
needed any help."

"Thank you, not now. It's gone; nothing can be done."

"I smelt coal oil," said Swan, throwing back his head, sniffing the
air like a buck. "Who done it?"

"Some of your neighbors," said Mackenzie.

"I knowed they would," Swan nodded. "Them fellers don't fight like me
and you, they don't stand up like a man. When I seen you take that
feller by the leg that day and upset him off of his horse and grab his
guns off of him, I knowed he'd burn you out."

Joan, forgetting her fear and dislike of Swan Carlson in her interest
of what he revealed, drew a little nearer to him.

"Were you around here that day, Swan?" she asked.

"Yes, I saw him upset that feller, little bird," Swan said, leaning
again from his saddle, his long neck stretched to peer into her face.
"He's a good man, but he ain't as good a man as me."

Swan was barefooted, just as he had leaped from his bunk in the
sheep-wagon to ride to the fire. There was a wild, high pride in his
cold, handsome face as he sat up in the saddle as if to show Joan his
mighty bulk, and he stretched out his long arms like an eagle on its
crag flexing its pinions in the morning sun.

"Did he--did Hector Hall sling a gun on Mr. Mackenzie that time?" she
asked, pressing forward eagerly.

"Never mind, Joan--let that go," said Mackenzie, putting his arm
before her to stay her, speaking hastily, as if to warn her back from
a danger.

"He didn't have time to sling a gun on him," said Swan, great
satisfaction in his voice as he recalled the scene. "Your man he's
like a cat when he jumps for a feller, but he ain't got the muscle in
his back like me."

"There's nobody in this country like you, Swan," said Joan, pleased
with him, friendly toward him, for his praise of the one he boldly
called her man.

"No, I can roll 'em all," Swan said, as gravely as if he would be hung
on the testimony. "You ought to have me for your man; then you'd have
somebody no feller on this range would burn out."

"You've got a wife, Swan," Joan said, with gentle reproof, but putting
the proposal from her as if she considered it a jest.

"I'm tired of that one," Swan confessed, frankly. Then to Mackenzie:
"I'll fight you for her." He swung half way out of the saddle, as if
to come to the ground and start the contest on the moment, hung there,
looking Mackenzie in the face, the light of morning revealing the
marks of his recent b