ave faith
in you. I believe you are worth it."

"You're only kind and good--saying that. You can't mean it."

"I mean it with all my heart," she replied, a sudden rich warmth
suffusing her body as she saw the first sign of his softening. "Will you
come back--if not for your own sake or Stillwell's--then for mine?"

"What am I to such a woman as you?"

"A man in trouble, Stewart. But I have come to help you, to show my
faith in you."

"If I believed that I might try," he said.

"Listen," she began, softly, hurriedly. "My word is not lightly given.
Let it prove my faith in you. Look at me now and say you will come."

He heaved up his big frame as if trying to cast off a giant's burden,
and then slowly he turned toward her. His face was a blotched and
terrible thing. The physical brutalizing marks were there, and at that
instant all that appeared human to Madeline was the dawning in dead,
furnace-like eyes of a beautiful light.

"I'll come," he whispered, huskily. "Give me a few days to straighten
up, then I'll come."

IX. The New Foreman

Toward the end of the week Stillwell informed Madeline that Stewart had
arrived at the ranch and had taken up quarters with Nels.

"Gene's sick. He looks bad," said the old cattleman. "He's so weak an'
shaky he can't lift a cup. Nels says that Gene has hed some bad spells.
A little liquor would straighten him up now. But Nels can't force him
to drink a drop, an' has hed to sneak some liquor in his coffee. Wal, I
think we'll pull Gene through. He's forgotten a lot. I was goin' to tell
him what he did to me up at Rodeo. But I know if he'd believe it he'd
be sicker than he is. Gene's losin' his mind, or he's got somethin'
powerful strange on it."

From that time Stillwell, who evidently found Madeline his most
sympathetic listener, unburdened himself daily of his hopes and fears
and conjectures.

Stewart was really ill. It became necessary to send Link Stevens for a
physician. Then Stewart began slowly to mend and presently was able to
get up and about. Stillwell said the cowboy lacked interest and seemed
to be a broken man. This statement, however, the old cattleman modified
as Stewart continued to improve. Then presently it was a good augury
of Stewart's progress that the cowboys once more took up the teasing
relation which had been characteristic of them before his illness. A
cowboy was indeed out of sorts when he could not vent his peculiar humor
on somebody or so