"Miss Mallinsbee," he cried, his big body leaning forward in his earnestness, and all his feelings displayed in his ingenuous face, "I'd rather let this thing go plumb smash than that you should be brought into contact with that filthy scum again. Say, you're too young, and good, to understand such creatures. I know----"

Hazel was smiling whimsically down into his anxious eyes.

"And you're so old and wise you can see plumb through him," she cried.

Then with an exact reproduction of his manner, she leaned forward so that their faces were within a foot of each other. "You two Solomons can't deal with him worth two cents. My daddy's too obstinate, and you--are too prejudiced. He's got to be dealt with, and I'm going to do it. In a case like this a girl's wiser than any two men."

"That's--just how your father argued," cried Gordon, in exasperation.

And the next moment he could have bitten off his tongue.

Hazel clapped her hands.

"So that was the argument," she cried delightedly. "My daddy in his wisdom thought of me, and you--you being just a big, big chivalrous boy with notions, couldn't see the same way."

Then she sat up, and her eyes grew very serious. That which lay behind them was completely hidden from her companion, as she intended it to be.

Had it been possible for him to have read her approval of himself in her attitude, he now made it beyond question by the sudden wave of heat which swept through his heart.

"I tell you, you've no right to sacrifice yourself," he cried hotly.

"Nor has your father----"

"No right? Sacrifice?" Hazel's eyes opened wide, and in their beautiful depths a sparkle of resentment shone. "Who says that?" she demanded. Then in a moment her merry thought banished the clouds of her displeasure. She began to tease. "Why shouldn't I do this? Say, you've roused my curiosity. What's the danger? I--I just love danger.

What is the danger I'm running?"

But Gordon's sense of humor was unequal to her teasing on such a subject. He remained sulkily silent.

"I'm waiting," Hazel urged slyly.

Gordon cleared his throat. He glanced up at her a little helplessly.

Their eyes met, and somehow he caught the infection of her lurking smile.

He was forced to laugh in spite of himself.

"If--if you don't know, it's not for me to say," he cried at last, with a shrug. "But I tell you, right here, if you were my sister you wouldn't go near Slosson, if I had to--to chain you up."

"But I'm not your sister," retorted Hazel, with her dazzling smile.

"And, if I were, I shouldn't be a sister of yours if I didn't." Then she laughed at herself. "Say, isn't that real bright?" Then with a great pretense at severity she flourished an admonitory finger at him.

"Gordon Van Henslaer," she said solemnly, "you're just as obstinate as my daddy, but you haven't got his wisdom." Her pretense passed and she became suddenly very earnest. "This thing is just all the world to my daddy," she said, "and I can help him. Wouldn't you help him if you had such a dear, quaint old daddy as I have? I'm sure you would. What does it matter to me what I may have to put up with if I can help him out? True, it doesn't matter a thing. Insults? Why, I'll just deal with them as they come along." Then her mood lightened. "Say, we're just two real good friends, Mr. Van Henslaer, aren't we? Friends.

It's got a bully sound. That's just how my daddy and I've been ever since my poor momma died years and years ago. Heigho!" she sighed.

"And now I've got another friend, and that's you. Say, we're always going to be friends, too, because you're going to understand that this--this thing is business, and business isn't play. My daddy wants to make good, and I'm going to do all I know. And," she added slyly, "that's quite a lot. Do you know, in this thing I'm dead honest when I'm dealing with honest folk, and I'm a 'sharp' when I'm dealing with 'sharps'? By that I just mean I'm not scared of a thing. Certainly of nothing Mr. David Slosson can do. My daddy can trust me, and he's known me all my life. You've only known me a week, but you can trust me too. I'm out to help things along, so just let's forget this--this talk."

Gordon's admiration for the girl was so obvious that no words of his were necessary to illuminate it, but he shook his head seriously as she finished speaking.

"I just can't help it, Miss Mallinsbee," he said, a little desperately.

"If anything happened to you I'd never forgive myself. What do you mean to do?"

Hazel smiled at his manner. Her smile was confident, but it was also an expression of her regard for him. She had no intention of modifying her decision, but she liked him for his dogged protest.

"You just leave that to me," she cried buoyantly. "I haven't an idea in my silly head--yet. All I can say is, David Slosson is to be encouraged. He's to be flattered. I'm going to make him smile real prettily with that mealy face of his. Guess I'll have to take him out rides--but I'll promise you it won't be my fault if he don't break his wicked neck."

Gordon was forced to join in the girl's infectious laugh, but it was without enjoyment. To think of this man riding at Hazel's side, basking in her smiles, enjoying her company just when and where he pleased. The thought was maddening. And it set his fingers tingling and itching to possess themselves of his throat and squeeze the life out of him.

"And how long's this to go on for?" he asked sulkily, in spite of his laugh.

Hazel's eyes opened wide.

"Why--until he weakens, and we get things fixed."

"And if he beats your game?"

"He'll hate himself first, and then we'll have to reorganize our plans."

"Then I guess I'll get busy on the other plans."

"I shall be beaten?"

Gordon glanced away towards the window. His eyes had become reflective.

"It's the only thing I can see," he said slowly. "He'll finish by insulting you. I know his kind. He'll insult you, sure. And I--well, I shall just as surely pretty near kill him. And then we'll need other--plans."

CHAPTER XI

HAZEL MALLINSBEE'S CAMPAIGN

The seductive mystery of the hills was beyond all words. A wonderful outlook of wide valleys, bounded in almost every direction by the vast incline of wood-clad hills, opened out a world that seemed to terminate abruptly everywhere, yet to go on and on in an endless series of great green valleys and mountain streams. Darkling wood-belts crept up the great hillsides, deep in mysterious shadows, stirring imagination, and carrying it back to all those haunting dreams of early childhood. For the most part these were all untrodden by human foot, and so their mystery deepened. Then above, often penetrating into the low-lying clouds, the crowning glory of alabaster peaks whose snowy sheen dazed the wondering eyes raised towards them.

In the valleys below, the green, the wonderful green, bright and delicate, and quite unfaded by the scorching sun of the prairie away beyond. Pastures beyond the dreams of all animal imagination in their humid richness. Water, too, and low, broken scrubs and woodland bluffs--one vast panorama of verdant beauty, such as only the eye of an artist or the heart of a ranchman could appreciate.

It was the setting of Silas Mallinsbee's ranch, that ranch which was more to him than all the world, except his motherless daughter. Gordon had seen it all as he rode out to spend the week-end on a ranch horse, placed by Mallinsbee at his disposal. He had marveled then at the delights spread out before his eyes. Now, on the Sunday morning, while he awaited breakfast, he wondered still more as he examined, even more closely, that wealth of natural splendor spread out for his delight.

He was lounging on the deep sun-sheltered veranda which faced the south. The ranch house was perched high up on the southern slope of one of the lesser hills. Above him the gentle morning breeze sighed in the rustling tree-tops of a great crowning woodland. Below him, and all around him, were the widespreading buildings and corrals of a great ranching enterprise. It seemed incredible to him that within twenty miles of him, away to the east, there could exist so mundane and sordid an undertaking as the Bude and Sideley Coal Company, and the vicious chorus of ground sharks which haunted Snake's Fall. He felt as though he were gazing out upon some enchanted valley of dreamland, where the soft breezes and glinting sunlight possessed a magic to rest the teeming energy of modern highly tuned brain and nerves.

Its seductiveness lulled him to a profound meditation, and into his dreaming stole the figure of the mistress of these miles of perfect beauty. Now he had some understanding of that fascinating buoyancy of spirit, the simple devotion with which she contemplated the life that claimed her. How could it be otherwise? Here was nature in all its wonders of simplicity, shedding upon the life sheltering at its bosom an equal simplicity, an equal strength, an equal singleness of mind with which it was itself endowed. He felt that if he, too, had been brought up in such surroundings no city flesh-pots could ever have offered him any fascination. He, too, must have felt that this--this alone was the real life of man.

The play of the dancing sunlight through the distant trees held his gaze. He forgot to smoke, he forgot everything except the beauty about him, the stirring ranch life below him, and the girl whose fascination was daily possessing a greater and greater hold upon him.

Then, quite gently, something else subtly merged itself with the pleasant tide of his meditations. It was the deep note of a voice which came from close beside him in a rolling bass that afforded no jar.

"A picture that's mighty hard to beat," it said.

Gordon nodded without turning.

"Sure."

"Kind of holds you till you wonder why folks ever build cities and things."