Her indignation flashed. "I'm no such thing. But I'm not quite a fool. A
babe in arms wouldn't swallow that fairy tale."

Awkward as her knowledge might prove, he could not help admiring the
resource and shrewdness of the girl. She had virtually served notice that
if she had a secret that needed keeping so had he.

They looked down over a desert green with bajadas, prickly pears, and
mesquit. To the right, close to a spur of the hills, were the dwarfed
houses of a ranch. The fans of a windmill caught the sun and flashed it
back to the travelers.

"The Bar Double G. My father owns it," Miss Lee explained.

"Oh! Your father owns it." He reflected a moment while he studied her.
"Let's understand each other, Miss Lee. I'm not what I claim to be, you
say. We'll put it that you have guessed right. What do you intend to do
about it? I'm willing to be made welcome at the Bar Double G, but I don't
want to be too welcome."

"I'm not going to do anything."

"So long as I remember not to remember what I've seen."

The blood burned in her cheeks beneath their Arizona tan. She did not look
at him. "If you like to put it that way."

He counted it to her credit that she was ashamed of the bargain in every
honest fiber of her.

"No matter what they say I've done. You'll keep faith?"

"I don't care what you've done," she flung back bitterly. "It's none of my
affair. I told you that before. Men come out here for all sorts of
reasons. We don't ask for a bill of particulars."

"Then I'll be right glad to go down to the Bar Double G with you, and say
thanks for the chance."

He had dismounted when they first reached the pass. Now she swung to the
saddle and he climbed behind her. They reached presently one of the
nomadic trails of the cattle country which wander leisurely around hills
and over gulches along the line of least resistance. This brought them to
a main traveled road leading to the ranch.

They rode in silence until the pasture fence was passed.

"What am I to tell them your name is?" she asked stiffly.

He took his time to answer. "Tom Morse is a good name, don't you think?
How would T. L. Morse do?"

She offered no comment, but sat in front of him, unresponsive as the
sphinx. The rigor of her flat back told him that, though she might have to
keep his shameful secret for the sake of her own, he could not presume
upon it the least in the world.

Melissy turned the horse over to a little Mexican boy and they wer