"

"Yes. My family is involved in the feud. Mr. Bellamy is a distant cousin
of mine."

"So he told me."

"Have you known him long?"

Melissy thought that there was a little more than curiosity in the quick
look the young woman flung at her.

"I met him when he first came here. He was lost on the desert and I found
him. After that we became very unfriendly. He jumped a mining claim
belonging to my father. But we've made it up and agreed to be friends."

"He wrote about the young lady who saved his life."

Melissy smiled. "Did he say that I was a cattle and a stage rustler?"

"He said nothing that was not good."

"I'm much obliged to him," the Western girl answered breezily. "And now do
tell me, Miss Yarnell, that you and your people have made up your mind to
stay permanently."

"Father is still looking the ground over. He has almost decided to buy a
store here. Yet he has been in the town only a day. So you see he must
like it."

Outside the open second story window of the hotel Melissy heard a voice
that sounded familiar. She moved toward the window alcove, and at the same
time a quick step was heard in the hall. Someone opened the door of the
parlor and stood on the threshold. It was the man called Boone.

Melissy, from the window, glanced round. Her first impulse was to speak;
her second to remain silent. For the Arkansan was not looking at her. His
mocking ribald gaze was upon Ferne Yarnell.

That young woman looked up from the letter of introduction she was reading
and a startled expression swept into her face.

"Dunc Boone," she cried.

The man doffed his hat with elaborate politeness. "Right glad to meet up
with you again, Miss Ferne. You was in short dresses when I saw you last.
My, but you've grown pretty. Was it because you heard I was in Arizona
that you came here?"

She rose, rejecting in every line of her erect figure his impudent
geniality, his insolent pretense of friendliness.

"My brother is in the hotel. If he learns you are here there will be
trouble."

A wicked malice lay in his smiling eyes. "Trouble for him or for me?" he
inquired silkily.

His lash flicked her on the raw. Hal Yarnell was a boy of nineteen. This
man had a long record as a gunfighter to prove him a desperate man.
Moreover, he knew how hopelessly heart sick she was of the feud that for
many years had taken its toll of blood.

"Haven't you done us enough harm, you and yours? Go away. Leave us alone.
That's al