careless. "You'll feel safer if you have a gun, and--and if you're
scared at anything, shoot it." He finished with another smile that
lighted wonderfully his face and his eyes.

She shook her head. "I've often stayed alone. There's nothing in the
world to be afraid of--and anyway, I'll have the dog. Thank you, all
the same."

Charming Billy looked at her, opened his mouth and closed it without
speaking. He laid the gun down on the table and turned to go. "If
anything scares yuh," he repeated stubbornly, "shoot it. Yuh don't
want to count too much on that dawg."

He discovered then that Flora Bridger was an exceedingly willful young
woman. She picked up the gun, overtook him, and fairly forced it into
his hands. "Don't be silly; I don't want it. I'm not such a coward as
all that. You must have a very poor opinion of women. I--I'm deadly
afraid of a gun!"

Billy was not particularly impressed by the last statement, but he
felt himself at the end of his resources and buckled the belt around
him without more argument. After all, he told himself, it was not
likely that she would have cause for alarm in the few hours that
he would be gone, and those hours he meant to trim down as much as
possible.

Out of the coulée where the high wall broke the force of the storm, he
faced the snow and wind and pushed on doggedly. It was bitter riding,
that night, but he had seen worse and the discomfort of it troubled
him little; it was not the first time he had bent head to snow and