The question punctured his reminiscent elation. He sagged down in his saddle. "I don't know," he answered despondently. "_Mon Dieu!_ To come down to this--a common laborer for wages--after _that_! When I think of it--when I think of it!"

"You are not to think of it again!" she commanded with kindly severity. "What you are to remember all the time is that you are now a man and honestly earning your own living, and no longer a--a leech battening on the sustenance produced by others."

He winced. "Was that my fault?"

"No, it was your father's. I marvel that he did not utterly ruin you."

"He has! In his last will he cuts me off with only a dollar."

"So that was it?--And you think that ruined you? I say it saved you!"

she went on with the same kindly severity. "You were a parasite. Now the chance is yours to prove that you have the makings of a man. You have started to prove it. You shall not stop proving it. You are not going to be a quitter."

"No!" he declared, straightening under her bright gaze. "I will not quit. I will try my best to make good as long as the chance is given me."

"Now you're talking!" she commended him breezily.

"How could I do otherwise when you asked me?" he replied with a grave sincerity far more complimentary than mere gallantry.

She colored with pleasure and began to tell him of the cattle and their ways.

When they reached the corral she complimented him in turn by allowing him to offsaddle her horse. They walked on down to the house and seated themselves in the porch. As he opened the bag of mail for her she noticed that her hand was empty and turned to look back towards the corral.

"Your receipt from the postmaster," she remarked; "I must have dropped it."

He sprang up. "If you wish to keep it, I shall go back and find it for you."

"No, oh, no; unless you want it yourself," she replied.

"Not I. The matter is closed, thanks to your kindness," he declared, again seating himself.

He was right, in so far as they were concerned. Yet the matter was not closed. That evening, when Knowles and Gowan returned from their day of range riding, the younger man noticed a crumpled slip of paper lying against the foot of the corral post below the place where he tossed up his saddle. He picked it up and looked to see if it was of any value. An oath burst from his thin-drawn lips.

"Shut up, Kid!" remonstrated Knowles. "I'm no more squeamish than most, but you know I don't like any cussing so near Chuckie."

"Look at this!" cried Gowan--"Enough to make anybody cuss!"

He thrust out the slip of paper close before his employer's eyes.

Knowles took it and read it through with deliberate care.

"Well?" he said. "It's a receipt from the postmaster to Ashton for those letters I sent over by him. What of it?"

"_Your_ letters?" asked Gowan, taken aback. "Did you write that one what is most particularly mentioned, the one to that big engineer Blake?"

"No. What would I be doing, writing to him or any engineer? They're just the people I don't want to have any doings with."

"Then if you didn't write him, who did?" questioned Gowan, his mouth again tightening.

"Why, I reckon you'll have to do your own guessing, Kid--unless it might be Ashton did it."

"That's one leg roped," said Gowan. "Can you guess why he'd be writing to that engineer?"

"Lord, no. He may have the luck to know him. Mr. Blake is a mighty big man, judging from all accounts; but money stands for a lot in the cities and back East, and Ashton's father is one of the richest men in Chicago. I looked it up in the magazine that told about his helping to back the Zariba Dam project."

"That's another leg noosed--on the second throw," said Gowan. "Another try or two, and we'll have the skunk ready for hog-tying."

"How's that?" exclaimed the cowman. "You've got something up your sleeve."

"No, it's that striped skunk that's doing the crooked playing,"

snapped Gowan. "Can't you savvy his game? It's all a frame-up--his sending off his guide and outfit, so's to let on to you he'd been busted up and kicked out by his dad. You take him in to keep his pretty carca.s.s from the coyotes--which has saved them from being poisoned."

"Now, look here, Kid, only trouble about you you're too apt to go off at half-c.o.c.k. This young fellow may not be--"

"He sh.o.r.e is a snake, Mr. Knowles, and this receipt proves it on him,"

broke in the puncher. "Ain't you taken him into your employ?--ain't you treated him like he was a man?"

"Well, 'tisn't every busted millionaire would have asked for work, and he seems to mean it."

"Just a bluff! You don't savvy the game yet. Busted millionaire--_bah!_ He's the coyote of that bunch of reclamation wolves. He comes out here to sneak around and get the lay of things. We happen to catch him rustling. To save his cussed carca.s.s, he lets out about who his dad is. Course he couldn't know we'd got all the reports on that Zariba Dam and who backed the engineer, nor that we'd know all about Blake."

"Well?" asked Knowles, frowning.

"So he works us for suckers,--worms in here with us where he can learn all about you and your holdings; ropes a job with you, and gets off his report to that engineer Blake, first time he rides over to town."

"Is that all your argument?" asked Knowles.

"Ain't it enough?" rejoined Gowan. "Ain't he and that bunch all in cahoots together? Ain't this sneaking cuss's dad either the partner or the boss of Blake? Ain't Blake engaged in reclamation projects? You sh.o.r.e see all that. What follows?--It's all a frame-up, I tell you.

Young Ashton comes out here as a sort of forerider for his concern; finds out what his people want to know, and now he's sent in his report to Blake. Next thing happens, Blake'll be turning up with a surveying outfit."

Knowles scratched his head. "Hum-m-m--You sure put up a mighty stiff argument, Kid. I'm not so sure, though.... Um-m-m--Strikes me some of your knots might be tighter. First place, there wasn't any play-acting about the way the boy went plumb to pieces there at the waterhole.

Next place, a man like his father, that's piled up a mint of money, isn't going to send out his son as forerider in a hostile country.

Lastly, I've read a lot more about that engineer Blake than you have, and I've sized him up as a man who won't do anything that isn't square and open."

"Maybe he ain't in on the dirty side of the deal," admitted Gowan.

"How about this letter, though?"

"Just a friendly writing, like as not," answered the cowman. "No, Kid--only trouble with you is you're too anxious over the interests of Dry Mesa range. I appreciate it, boy, and so does Chuckie. But that's no reason for you to take every newcomer for a wolf 'til he proves he's only a dog."

"You won't do anything?" asked the puncher.

"What d'you want me to do?"

"Fire him--run him off Dry Mesa," snapped Gowan.

"Sorry I can't oblige you, Kid," replied Knowles. "You mean well, but you'll have to make a better showing before I'll turn adrift any man that seems to be trying to make good."

Gowan looked down. After a brief pause he replied with unexpected submissiveness: "All right, Mr. Knowles. You're the boss. Reckon you know best. I don't savvy these city folks."

"Glad you admit it," said Knowles. "You're all wrong in sizing him up that way. I've a notion he's got a lot of good in him, spite of his city rearing. I wouldn't object, though, if you wanted to test him out with a little harmless hazing, long as you didn't go too far."