eyes.
He took up his belt; Mackenzie marked how his hands trembled as he
buckled it on.

"Well, you keep out of it, you damned pedagogue!" Reid said, the words
bursting from him in vehement passion. "This is my game; I'll play it
without any more of your interference. You've gone far enough with
her--you've gone too far! Drop it; let her alone."

Mackenzie got up. Reid stood facing him, his color gone now, his face
gray. Mackenzie held him a moment with stern, accusing eyes. Then:

"Have you been over there spying on me?"

Reid passed over the question, leaving Mackenzie to form his own
conclusions. His face flushed a little at the sting of contempt that
Mackenzie put into his words. He fumbled for a match to light his stub
of cigarette before he spoke:

"I played into your hands when I let you go over there, and you knew
I'd play into them when you proposed it. But that won't happen
twice."

"I'll not allow any man to put a deliberately false construction on my
motives, Reid," Mackenzie told him, hotly. "I didn't propose going
over to let Dad off, and you know it. I wanted you to go."

"You knew I wouldn't," Reid returned, with surly word.

"If you've been leaving the sheep to go over there and lie on your
belly like a snake behind a bush to spy on Joan and me, and I guess
you've been doing it, all right--you're welcome to all you've found
out. There aren't any secrets between Joan and me to keep from
anybody's eyes or ears."

Reid jerked his thin mouth in expression of derision.

"She's green, she's as soft as cheese. Any man could kiss her--I could
have done it fifteen minutes after I saw her the first time."

If Reid hoped to provoke a quarrel leading up to an excuse for making
use of the gun for which his hand seemed to itch, he fell short of his
calculations. Mackenzie only laughed, lightly, happily, in the way of
a man who knew the world was his.

"You're a poor loser, Earl," he said.

"I'm not the loser yet--I'm only takin' up my hand to play. There
won't be room on this range for you and me, Mackenzie, unless you step
back in your schoolteacher's place, and lie down like a little lamb."

"It's a pretty big range," Mackenzie said, as if he considered it
seriously; "I guess you can shift whenever the notion takes you. You
might take a little vacation of about three years back in a certain
state concern in Nebraska."

"Let that drop--keep your hands off of that! You don't know anything
about th