Houck was sprawled on a bench in front of the cabin. He grinned impudently. His manner was an exasperating challenge. Evidently he did not believe she would.

June turned and walked to the stable. The heavy brogans weighted down the lightness of her step. The shapeless clothes concealed the grace of the slim figure. But even so there was a vital energy in the way she moved.

Tolliver was mending the broken teeth of a hay-rake and making a poor job of it.

June made a direct frontal attack. "Dad, did you ever know a man named Pete Purdy?"

The rancher's lank, unshaven jaw fell. The blow had fallen at last. In a way he had expected it. Yet his mind was too stunned to find any road of escape.

"Why, yes--yes, I--yes, honey," he faltered.

"Who was he?"

"Well, he was a--a cowpuncher, I reckon."

"Who was Jasper Stuart, then?"

An explanation could no longer be dodged or avoided. Houck had talked too much. Tolliver knew he must make a clean breast of it, and that his own daughter would sit in judgment on him. Yet he hung back. The years of furtive silence still held him.

"He was a fellow lived in Brown's Park."

"What had you to do with him? Why did Jake Houck tell me to ask you about him?"

"Oh, I reckon--"

"And about where you lived while I was with Aunt Molly at Rawlins?" she rushed on.

The poor fellow moistened his dry lips. "I--I'll tell you the whole story, honey. Mebbe I'd ought to 'a' told you long ago. But someways--"

He stopped, trying for a fresh start. "You'll despise yore old daddy. You sure will. Well, you got a right to. I been a mighty bad father to you, June. Tha's a fact."

She waited, dread-filled eyes on his.

"Prob'ly I'd better start at the beginnin', don't you reckon? I never did have any people to brag about. Father and mother died while I was a li'l'

grasshopper. I was kinda farmed around, as you might say. Then I come West an' got to punchin' cows. Seems like, I got into a bad crowd. They was wild, an' they rustled more or less. In them days there was a good many sleepers an' mavericks on the range. I expect we used a running-iron right smart when we wasn't sure whose calf it was."

He was trying to put the best face on the story. June could see that, and her heart hardened toward him. She ignored the hungry appeal for mercy in his eyes.

"You mean you stole cattle. Is that it?" She was willing to hurt herself if she could give him pain. Had he not ruined her life?

"Well, I--I--Yes, I reckon that's it. Our crowd picked up calves that belonged to the big outfits like the Diamond Slash. We drove 'em up to Brown's Park, an' later acrost the line to Wyoming or Utah."

"Was Jake Houck one of your crowd?"

Pete hesitated.

She cut in, with a flare of childish ferocity. "I'm gonna know the truth.

He's not protecting you any."

"Yes. Jake was one of us. I met up with him right soon after I come to Colorado."

"And Purdy?"

"Tha's the name I was passin' under. I'd worked back in Missouri for a fellow of that name. They got to callin' me Pete Purdy, so I kinda let it go. My father's name was Tolliver, though. I took it--after the trouble."

"What trouble?"

"It come after I was married. I met yore maw at Rawlins. She was workin'

at the railroad restaurant waitin' on table. For a coupla years we lived there, an' I wish to God we'd never left. But Jake persuaded 'Lindy I'd ought to take up land, so we moved back to the Park an' I preempted.

Everything was all right at first. You was born, an' we was right happy.

But Jake kep' a-pesterin' me to go in with him an' do some cattle runnin'

on the quiet. There was money in it--pretty good money--an' yore maw was sick an' needed to go to Denver. Jake, he advanced the money, an' o'

course I had to work in with him to pay it back. I was sorta driven to it, looks like."

He stopped to mop a perspiring face with a bandanna. Tolliver was not enjoying himself.

"You haven't told me yet what the trouble was," June said.

"Well, this fellow Jas Stuart was a stock detective. He come down for the Cattlemen's Association to find out who was doing the rustlin' in Brown's Park. You see, the Park was a kind of a place where we holed up. There was timbered gulches in there where we could drift cattle in an' hide 'em. Then there was the Hole-in-the-Wall. I expect you've heard of that too."

"Did this Stuart find out who was doing the rustlin'?"

"He was right smart an' overbearin'. Too much so for his own good. Some of the boys served notice on him he was liable to get dry-gulched if he didn't take the trail back where he come from. But Jas was right obstinate an' he had sand in his craw. I'll say that for him. Well, one day he got word of a drive we was makin'. Him an' his deputies laid in wait for us. There was shooting an' my horse got killed. The others escaped, but they nailed me. In the rookus Stuart had got killed. They laid it on me. Mebbe I did it. I was shooting like the rest. Anyhow, I was convicted an' got twenty years in the pen."

"Twenty years," June echoed.

"Three--four years later there was a jail break. I got into the hills an'

made my getaway. Travelin' by night, I reached Rawlins. From there I came down here with a freight outfit, an' I been here ever since."

He stopped. His story was ended. June looked at the slouchy little man with the weak mouth and the skim-milk, lost-dog eyes. He was so palpably wretched, so plainly the victim rather than the builder of his own misfortunes, that her generous heart went out warmly to him.

With a little rush she had him in her arms. They wept together, his head held tight against her immature bosom. It was the first time she had ever known him to break down, and she mothered him as women have from the beginning of time.

"You poor Daddy. Don't I know how it was? That Jake Houck was to blame.

He led you into it an' left you to bear the blame," she crooned.

"It ain't me. It's you I'm thinkin' of, honey. I done ruined yore life, looks like. I shut you off from meeting decent folks like other girls do.

You ain't had no show."

"Don't you worry about me, Dad. I'll be all right. What we've got to think about is not to let it get out who you are. If it wasn't for that big bully up at the house--"

She stopped, hopelessly unable to cope with the situation. Whenever she thought of Houck her mind came to an _impasse_. Every road of escape it traveled was blocked by his jeering face, with the jutting jaw set in implacable resolution.

"It don't look like Jake would throw me down thataway," he bewailed. "I never done him a meanness. I kep' my mouth shut when they got me an'

wouldn't tell who was in with me. Tha's one reason they soaked me with so long a sentence. They was after Jake. They kep' at me to turn state's evidence an' get a short term. But o' course I couldn't do that."

"'Course not. An' now he turns on you like a coyote--after you stood by him." A surge of indignation boiled up in her. "He's the very worst man ever I knew--an' if he tries to do you any harm I'll--I'll settle with him."

Her father shook his unkempt head. "No, honey. I been learnin' for twelve years that a man can't do wrong for to get out of a hole he's in. If Jake's mean enough to give me up, why, I reckon I'll have to stand the gaff."