u are thinking
about."

Lorry flushed. "I--I guess you are," he stammered. "Mother, you never
told me _that_."

"You were too young to understand, Lorry."

"And is that why you left him?"

"Yes."

"Well, maybe you were right. But dad sure looks like a pretty decent
hombre to me."

They laughed in a kind of relief. The occasion had seemed rather
strained.

"Ask your mother, Lorry. I am out of it." And, rising Waring strode to
the doorway.

Lorry rose.

"I'll see you again," said Waring. And he stepped to the street, humming
his song of "Sonora and the Silver Strings."

Mrs. Adams put her arm about her son's shoulders. "Your father is a hard
man," she told him.

"Was he mean to you, mother?"

"No--never that."

"Well, I don't understand it. He looks like a real man to me. Why did he
come back?"

"He said he came back to see you."

"Well, he's my father, anyway," said Lorry.

Chapter VIII

_Lorry_

In the low hills west of Stacey, Lorry was looking for strays. He worked
alone, whistling as he rode, swinging his glasses on this and that
arroyo and singling out the infrequent clumps of greasewood for a touch
of brighter color in their shadows. He urged his pony from crest to
crest, carelessly easy in the saddle, alive to his work, and quietly
happy in the lone freedom of thought and action.

He felt a bit proud of himself that morning. Only last night he had
learned that he was the son of Waring of Sonora; a name to live up to,
if Western standards meant anything, and he thought they did.

The fact that he was the son of James Waring overcame for the time being
the vague disquietude of mind attending his knowledge that his mother
and father had become estranged. He thought he understood now why his
mother had made him promise to go unarmed upon the range. His
companions, to the last man, "packed a gun."

Heretofore their joshing had not bothered him. In fact, he had rather
enjoyed the distinction of going unarmed, and he had added to this
distinction by acquiring a skill with the rope that occasioned much
natural jealousy among his fellows. To be top-hand with a rope among
such men as Blaze Andrews, Slim Trivet, Red Bender, and High-Chin Bob,
the foreman, was worth all the patient hours he had given to persistent
practice with the reata.

But to-day he questioned himself. His mother had made him promise to go
unarmed because she feared he would become like his father. Why hadn't
she