ookin' for me today."

"You brought them back?" Joan leaned again, her hand on his arm, where
it remained a little spell, as she looked her admiration into his
face.

"Nothing to it," said Reid, modestly, laughing again in his grating
harsh way of vast experience, and scorn for the things which move the
heart.

"It's a good deal, I think," said she. "But," thoughtfully, "I don't
see what made him drop his gun."

"You can search me," said Reid, in his careless, unsympathetic way.

"It might have happened to anybody, though, a dog and a man against
him."

"Yes, even a better man."

"A better man don't live," said Joan, with calm decision.

Reid bent his eyes to the pommel of his saddle, and sat so a few
moments, in the way of a man who turns something in his thoughts.
Then:

"I guess I'll go on back to the sheep."

"He may never get well to thank you for what you did, Earl," and
Joan's voice threatened tears in its low, earnest tremolo, "but
I----"

"Oh, that's all right, Joan." Reid waved gratitude, especially
vicarious gratitude, aside, smiling lightly. "He's not booked to go
yet; wait till he's well and let him do his own talking. Somebody
ought to sneak that gun away from him, though, and slip a twenty-two
in his scabbard. They can't hurt him so bad with that when they take
it away from him."

"It might have happened to you!" she reproached.

"Well, it might," Reid allowed, after some reflection. "Sure, it
might," brightening, looking at her frankly, his ingenuous smile
softening the crafty lines of his thin face. "Well, leave him to
Rabbit and Dad; they'll fix him up."

"If he isn't better tomorrow I'm going for a doctor, if nobody else
will."

"You're not goin' to hang around there all the time, are you, Joan?"

Reid's face flushed as he spoke, his eyes made small, as if he looked
in at a furnace door.

Joan did not answer this, only lifted her face with a quick start,
looking at him with brows lifted, widening her great, luminous, tender
eyes. Reid stroked her horse's mane, his stirrup close to her foot,
his look downcast, as if ashamed of the jealousy he had betrayed.

"I don't mind the lessons, and that kind of stuff," said he, looking
up suddenly, "but I don't want the girl--oh well, you know as well as
I do what kind of a deal the old folks have fixed up for you and me,
Joan."

"Of course. I'm going to marry you to save you from work."

"I thought it was a raw deal when they sprung