"No," denied June, a spark of flaming resolution in her shining eyes.

CHAPTER VI

"DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!"

Inside the big chuck tent of the construction camp the cook was busy forking steak to tin plates and ladling potatoes into deep dishes.

"Git a move on you, Red Haid," he ordered.

Bob Dillon distributed the food at intervals along the table which ran nearly the whole length of the canvas top. From an immense coffee pot he poured the clear brown liquid into tin cups set beside each plate. This done, he passed out into the sunshine and beat the triangle.

From every tent men poured like seeds squirted from a squeezed lemon.

They were all in a hurry and they jostled each other in their eagerness to get through the open flap. Straw boss, wood walkers, and ground men, they were all hungry. They ate swiftly and largely. The cook and his flunkey were kept busy.

"More spuds!" called one.

"Coming up!" Dillon flung back cheerfully.

"Shoot along more biscuits!" a second ordered.

"On the way!" Bob announced.

The boss of the outfit came in leisurely after the rush. He brought a guest with him and they sat down at the end of the table.

"Beans!" demanded a line man, his mouth full.

"Headed for you!" promised the flunkey.

The guest of the boss was a big rangy fellow in the early forties. Bob heard the boss call him "Jake," and later "Houck." As soon as the boy had a moment to spare he took a good look at the man. He did not like what he saw. Was it the cold, close-set eyes, the crook of the large nose, or the tight-lipped mouth gave the fellow that semblance to a rapacious wolf?

As soon as Bob had cleaned up the dishes he set off up the creek to meet June. The boy was an orphan and had been brought up in a home with two hundred others. His life had been a friendless one, which may have been the reason that he felt a strong bond of sympathy for the lonely girl on Piceance. He would have liked to be an Aladdin with a wonder lamp by means of which he could magically transform her affairs to good fortune.

Since this could not be, he gave her what he had--a warm fellow-feeling because of the troubles that worried her.

He found June waiting at their usual place of meeting. Pete Tolliver's forty-four hung in a scabbard along the girl's thigh. Bob remembered that she had spoken of seeing a rattlesnake on the trail yesterday.

"'Lo, boy," she called.

"'Lo, June. I met yore friend."

"What friend?"

"Jake Houck. He was down at the camp for dinner to-day--came in with the boss."

"He's no friend of mine," she said sulkily.

"Don't blame you a bit. Mr. Houck looks like one hard citizen. I'd hate to cross him."

"He's as tough as an old range bull. No matter what you say or do you can't faze him," she replied wearily.

"You still hate him?"

"More 'n ever. Most o' the time. He just laughs. He's bound an'

determined to marry me whether or not. He will, too."

Bob looked at her, surprised. It was the first time she had ever admitted as much. June's slim body was packed with a pantherish resilience. Her spirit bristled with courage. What had come over her?

"He won't if you don't want him to."

"Won't he?" June was lying on a warm flat rock. She had been digging up dirt at the edge of it with a bit of broken stick. Now she looked up at him with the scorn of an experience she felt to be infinitely more extensive than his. "A lot you know about it."

"How can he? If you an' Mr. Tolliver don't want him to."

"He just will."

"But, June, that don't listen reasonable to me. He's got you buffaloed.

If you make up yore mind not to have him--"

"I didn't say I'd made up my mind not to have him. I said I hated him,"

she corrected.

"Well, you wouldn't marry a fellow you hated," he argued.

"How do you know so much about it, Bob Dillon?" she flared.

"I use what brains I've got. Women don't do things like that. There wouldn't be any sense in it."

"Well, I'll prob'ly do it. Then you'll know I haven't got a lick o'

sense," she retorted sullenly.

"You ce'tainly beat my time," he said, puzzled. "I've heard you say more mean things about him than everybody else put together, an' now you're talkin' about marryin' him. Why? What's yore reason?"

She looked up. For a moment the morose eyes met his. They told nothing except a dogged intention not to tell anything.

But the boy was no fool. He had thought a good deal about the lonely life she and her father led. Many men came into this country three jumps ahead of the law. It was not good form to ask where any one came from unless he volunteered information about antecedent conditions. Was it possible that Jake Houck had something on Tolliver, that he was using his knowledge to force June into a marriage with him? Otherwise there would be no necessity for her to marry him. As he had told her, it was a free land.

But if Houck was coercing her because of her fears for Tolliver, it was possible this might be a factor in determining June to marry him.

"Don't you do it, June. Don't you marry him. He didn't look good to me, Houck didn't," Dillon went on. He was a little excited, and his voice had lifted.

A man who came at this moment round the bend of the creek was grinning unpleasantly. His eyes focused on Dillon.

"So I don't look good to you. Tha's too bad. If you'll tell me what you don't like about me I'll make myself over," jeered Houck.

Bob was struck dumb. The crooked smile and the stab of the eyes that went with it were menacing. He felt goose quills running up and down his spine. This man was one out of a thousand for physical prowess.

"I didn't know you was near," the boy murmured.