Houck's ill-natured laugh cut the sentence. It was a jangled dissonance without mirth. "What accident?" he jeered.

"Why--when I got into the trouble--"

"You mean when Jas Stuart caught you rustlin' an' you murdered him an'

went to the pen. That what you mean?" he demanded loudly.

Tolliver caught his sleeve. "S-sh! She don't know a thing about it. You recollect I told you that."

The other nodded, hard eyes gloating over the rancher's distress. "An' o'

course she don't know you broke jail at Canon City an' are liable to be dragged back if any one should happen to whisper to the sheriff."

"Not a thing about all that. I wouldn't holler it out thataway if I was you, Jake," Tolliver suggested, glancing nervously toward the house.

"Maybe I ought to 'a' told her, but I never did. Her maw died of it, an'

I jes' couldn't make out to tell June. You see yoreself how it would be, Pete. Her a li'l' trick with nobody but me. I ain't no great shakes, but at that I'm all she's got. I figured that 'way off here, under another name, they prob'ly never would find me."

"Pretty good guess, Pete Purdy."

"Don' call me that," begged Tolliver.

Houck showed his teeth in an evil grin. "I forgot. What I was sayin' was that nobody knows you're here but me. Most folks have forgot all about you. You can fix things so 's to be safe enough."

"You wouldn't give me away, Jake. You was in on the rustlin' too. We was pals. It was jes' my bad luck I met up with Jas that day. I didn't begin the shooting. You know that."

"I ain't likely to give away my own father-in-law, am I?"

Again the close-set, hard eyes clamped fast to the wavering ones of the tortured outlaw. In them Tolliver read an ultimatum. Notice was being served on him that there was only one way to seal Houck's lips.

That way he did not want to follow. Pete was a weak father, an ineffective one, wholly unable to give expression to the feeling that at times welled up in him. But June was all his life now held. He suffered because of the loneliness their circumstances forced upon her. The best was what he craved for her.

And Jake Houck was a long way from the best. He had followed rough and evil trails all his life. As a boy, in his cowpuncher days, he had been hard and callous. Time had not improved him.

June came to the door of the cabin and called.

"What is it, honey?" Tolliver asked.

"He's got my shoe. I want it."

Pete looked at the brogan sticking out of Jake's pocket. The big fellow forestalled a question.

"I'll take it to her," he said.

Houck strode to the house.

"So it's yore shoe after all," he grinned.

"Give it here," June demanded.

"Say pretty please."

She flashed to anger. "You're the meanest man I ever did meet."

"An' you're the prettiest barelegged dancer on the Creek," he countered.

June stamped the one shoe she was wearing. "Are you going to give me that brogan or not?"

"If you'll let me put it on for you."

Furious, she flung round and went back into the house.

He laughed delightedly, then tossed the heavy shoe into the room after her. "Here's yore shoe, girl. I was only foolin'," he explained.

June snatched up the brogan, stooped, and fastened it.

CHAPTER V

JUNE ASKS QUESTIONS

Houck, an unwelcome guest, stayed at the cabin on Piceance nearly two weeks. His wooing was surely one of the strangest known. He fleered at June, taunted her, rode over the girl's pride and sense of decorum, beat down the defenses she set up, and filled her bosom with apprehension. It was impossible to score an advantage over his stolid strength and pachydermous insensibility.

The trapper sweated blood. He neither liked nor trusted his guest, but he was bound hand and foot. He must sit and watch the fellow moving to his end, see the gains he made day by day, and offer no effective protest.

For Houck at a word could send him back to the penitentiary and leave June alone in a world to which her life had been alien.

Pete knew that the cowman was winning the campaign. His assumption that he was an accepted suitor of June began to find its basis of fact. The truth could be read in the child's hunted eyes. She was still fighting, but the battle was a losing one.

Perhaps this was the best way out of a bad situation, Tolliver found himself thinking. In his rough way Houck was fond of June. A blind man could see that. Even though he was a wolf, there were moments when his eyes were tender for her. He would provide well for a wife. If his little Cinderella could bring herself to like the man, there was always a chance that love would follow. Jake always had the knack of fascinating women.

He could be very attractive when he wished.

On a happy morning not long since June had sung of her wings. She was a meadow-lark swooping over the hills to freedom, her throat throbbing with songs of joy. Sometimes Pete, too, thought of her as a bird, but through many hours of anguished brooding he had come to know she was a fledgling with broken wings. The penalty for the father's sins had fallen upon the child. All her life she must be hampered by the environment his wrongdoing had built up around them.

Since the beginning of the world masterful men have drawn to them the eyes and thoughts of women. June was no exception. Among the hours when she hated Houck were increasing moments during which a nave wonder and admiration filled her mind. She was primitive, elemental. A little tingle of delight thrilled her to know that this strong man wanted her and would fight to win what his heart craved. After all he was her first lover. A queer shame distressed the girl at the memory of his kisses, for through all the anger, chagrin, and wounded pride had come to her the first direct realization of what sex meant. Her alarmed innocence pushed this from her.

Without scruple Houck used all the weapons at hand. There came a day when he skirted the edges of the secret.

"What do you mean?" she demanded. "What is it you claim to know about Dad all so big?"

He could see that June's eyes were not so bold as the words. They winced from his even as she put the question.

"Ask him."

"What'll I ask? I wouldn't believe anything you told me about him. He's not like you. He's good."

"You don't have to believe me. Ask him if he ever knew any one called Pete Purdy. Ask him who Jasper Stuart was. An' where he lived whilst you was stayin' with yore aunt at Rawlins."

"I ain't afraid to," she retorted. "I'll do it right now."