was about the straight of it."

"You ought to be hung for running away from her, you old hard-shelled
scoundrel!"

Dad took it in silence, and sat rubbing it into his beard like a
liniment. After a while he rose, squinted his eye up at the sun with a
quick turn of his head like a chicken.

"I reckon every man's done something he ought to be hung for," he
said.

That ended it. Dad went off to begin supper, there being potatoes to
cook. Sullivan had sent a sack of that unusual provender out to camp
to help Mackenzie get his strength back in a hurry, he said.

Tim himself put in his appearance at camp a little later in the day,
when the scent of lamb stew that Dad had in the kettle was streaming
over the hills. Tim could not resist it, for it was seasoned with wild
onions and herbs, and between the four of them they left the pot as
clean as Jack Spratt's platter, the dogs making a dessert on the
bones.

Dad and Rabbit went away presently to assemble the sheep for the
night, and Tim let his Irish tongue wag as it would. He was in lively
and generous mood, making a joke of the mingling of the flocks which
had come so dearly to Mackenzie's account. He bore himself like a man
who had gained something, indeed, and that was the interpretation put
on it by Mackenzie.

Tim led up to what he had come to discuss presently, beaming with stew
and satisfaction when he spoke of Joan.

"Of course you understand, John, I don't want you to think it was any
slam on you that I took Joan off the range and made her stop takin'
her book lessons from you. That girl got too fresh with me, denyin' my
authority to marry her to the man I've picked."

Mackenzie nodded, a great warmth of understanding glowing in his
breast.

"But I don't want you to feel that it was any reflection on your
ability as a teacher, you understand, John; I don't want you to look
at it that way at all."

"Not at all," Mackenzie echoed, quite sincerely.

"You could 'a' had her, for all the difference it was to me, if I
hadn't made that deal with Reid. A man's got to stick to his word, you
know, lad, and not have it thwarted by any little bobbin of a girl.
I'd as soon you'd have one of my girls as any man I know, John."

"Thanks."

"Of course I could see how it might turn out between you and Joan if
she kept on ridin' over to have lessons from you every day. You can't
blame Earl if he saw it the same way, lad."

"She isn't his yet," said Mackenzie confiden