d made his kill on this little heifer and eaten
heartily. It occurred to me while we were chasing him that he was
logey. Well--when Mike's away the cats will play."

He reached down, grasped the calf by the forelegs and drew the forlorn
little animal up before him on the saddle. As it stretched out quietly
across his thighs, following a half-hearted struggle to escape, Kay saw
Don Mike give the orphan his left index finger to suck.

"Not much sustenance in it, is there, old timer?" he addressed the
calf. "Coyotes would have had you tonight if I hadn't passed by."

"What a tiny calf," Kay observed, riding close to pat the sleek head.

"He's scrubby and interbred; his mother bore him before she had her own
growth and a hundred generations of him got the same poor start in
life. You've seen people like this little runt. He really isn't worth
carrying home, but--"

It occurred to her that his silence was eloquent of the inherent
generosity of the man, even as his poetic outburst of a few minutes
before had been eloquent of the minstrel in him. She rode in silence,
regarding him critically from time to time, and when they came to the
tree where the panther hung he gave her the calf to hold while he
deftly skinned the dead marauder, tied the pelt behind his saddle,
relieved her of the calf and jogged away toward home.

"Well," he demanded, presently, "you do not think any the less of me
for what I did to your father this afternoon, do you?"

"Of course not. Nobody likes a mollycoddle," she retorted.

"A battle of finances between your father and me will not be a very
desperate one. A gnat attacking a tiger. I shall scarcely interest
him. I am predestined to defeat."

"But with Mr. Conway's aid--"

"Bill's aid will not amount to very much. He was always a splendid
engineer and an honest builder, but a poor business man. He might be
able to maintain work on the dam for awhile, but in the end lack of
adequate finances would defeat us. And I have no right to ask Bill to
sacrifice the profit on this job which your father is willing to pay
him, in return for a cancellation of the contract; I have no right to
ask or expect Bill Conway to risk a penniless old age for me. You see,
I attacked him at his weakest point--his heart. It was selfish of me."

She could not combat this argument, so she said nothing and for a
quarter of a mile her companion rode with his chin on his breast, in
silence. What a man of