He tried to be honest about it. "That's all very well, but they were a bad lot. They didn't hesitate to kill. The town had to defend itself. No, it was just that I'm such a--baby."

"You're not!" she protested indignantly. "I won't have you say it, either."

His hungry eyes could not leave her, so slim and ardent, all fire and flame. The sweetness of her energy, the grace of the delicate lifted throat curve, the warmth and color of life in her, expressed a spirit generous and fine. His heart sang within him. Out of a world of women she was the one he wanted, the lance-straight mate his soul leaped out to meet.

"There's no one like you in the world, June," he cried. "Nobody in all the world."

She flashed at him eyes of alarm. A faint pink, such as flushes the sea at dawn, waved into her cheeks and throat.

"I've got to go," she said hurriedly. "Mollie'll be expectin' me."

She was off, light-footed as Daphne, the rhythm of morning in her step.

All day she carried with her the treasure of his words and the look that had gone with them. Did he think it? Did he really and truly believe it?

Her exaltation stayed with her while she waited on table, while she nursed the wounded men, while she helped Chung wash the dishes. It went singing with her into her little bedroom when she retired for the night.

June sat down before the small glass and looked at the image she saw there. What was it he liked about her? She studied the black crisp hair, the dark eager eyes with the dusky shadows under them in the slight hollows beneath, the glow of red that stained the cheeks below the pigment of the complexion. She tried looking at the reflection from different angles to get various effects. It was impossible for her not to know that she was good to look at, but she had very little vanity about it. None the less it pleased her because it pleased others.

She let down her long thick hair and combed it. The tresses still had the old tendency of her childhood to snarl unless she took good care of them.

From being on her feet all day the shoes she was wearing were uncomfortable. She slipped them off and returned to the brushing of the hair.

While craning her neck for a side view June saw in the glass that which drained the blood from her heart. Under the bed the fingers of a hand projected into view. It was like her that in spite of the shock she neither screamed nor ran to the door and cried for help. She went on looking at her counterfeit in the glass, thoughts racing furiously. The hand belonged to a man. She could see that now plainly, could even make out a section of the gauntlet on his wrist. Who was he? What was he doing here in her room?

She turned in the chair, deliberately, steadying her voice.

"Better come out from there. I see you," she said quietly.

From under the bed Jake Houck crawled.

CHAPTER XLII

A WALK IN THE PARK

June was the first to speak. "So you're here. You didn't get away."

"I'm here," Houck growled. "No chance for a getaway. I ran out the back door of the bank an' ducked into the hotel. This was the first door I come to, an' I headed in."

She was not afraid of him. The power he had once held over her was gone forever. The girl had found resources within herself that refused him dominance. He was what he always had been, but she had changed. Her vision was clearer. A game and resourceful bully he might be, but she knew one quiet youth of a far finer courage.

"They're lookin' for you along the river," she said.

The muscles of his jaw hardened. "They'd better hope they don't find me, some of 'em," he bragged.

"So had you," she said significantly.

He took her meaning instantly. The temper of Bear Cat was on edge for a lynching. "Did they die, either o' those fellows I shot?" the bandit demanded.

"Not yet."

"Fools, the pair of 'em. If that bank teller hadn't grabbed for his gun we'd 'a' got away with it fine."

She looked at him with disgust, not untouched with self-scorn because she had ever let him become an overpowering influence in her life. He could no more help boasting than he could breathing.

"As it is, you've reached the end of your rope," the girl said steadily.

"Don't you think I'm at the end of a rope. I'm a long ways from there."

"And the men with you are gone."

"How gone? Did they get 'em?"

"Neither of them ever moved out of his tracks."

"When I heard the shootin' I figured it would be thataway," Houck said callously.

She could see in him no evidence whatever of regret or remorse for what he had done. This raid, she guessed, was of his planning. He had brought the others into it, and they had paid the penalty of their folly. The responsibility for their deaths lay at his door. He was not apparently giving a thought to that.

"You can't stay here," she told him coldly. "You'll have to go."

"Go where? Can you get me a horse?"

"I won't," June answered.

"I got to have a horse, girl," he wheedled. "Can't travel without one."

"I don't care how far you travel or what becomes of you. I want you out of here. That's all."

"You wouldn't want me shootin' up some o' yore friends, would you? Well, then. If they find me here there'll be some funerals in Bear Cat. You can bet heavy on that."

She spoke more confidently than she felt. "They can take care of themselves. I won't have you here. I'll not protect you."

The outlaw's eyes narrowed to slits. "Throw me down, would you? Tell 'em I'm here, mebbe?" His face was a menace, his voice a snarl.

June looked at him steadily, unafraid. "You needn't try to bully me. It's not worth wasting your time."

To look at her was to know the truth of what she said, but he could not help trying to dominate the girl, both because it was his nature and because he needed so badly her help.

"Sho! You're not so goshalmighty. You're jes' June Tolliver. I'm the same Jake Houck you once promised to marry. Don't forget that, girl. I took you from that white-livered fellow you married--"

"Who saved you from the Utes when nobody else would lift a finger for you. That comes well from you of all men," she flung out.

"That ain't the point. What I'm sayin' is that I'll not stand for you throwin' me down."

"What can you do?" She stood before him in her stockings, the heavy black hair waving down to her hips, a slim girl whose wiry strength he could crush with one hand.