"All right," he called to the girl; helped her into the saddle and
started off, with not a word of farewell from Miss Bridger to the
Pilgrim.

The storm had passed and the air was still and biting cold. The
eastern sky was stained red and purple with the rising sun, and
beneath the feet of their horses the snow creaked frostily. So they
rode down the coulée and then up a long slope to the top, struck the
trail and headed straight north with a low line of hills for their
goal. And in the hour and a half of riding, neither spoke a dozen
words.

At the door of her own home Billy left her, and gathered up the reins
of the Pilgrim's horse. "Well, good-by. Oh, that's all right--it
wasn't any trouble at all," he said huskily when she tried to thank
him, and galloped away.




CHAPTER III.

_Charming Billy Has a Fight._


If Billy Boyle had any ideals he did not recognize them as such, and
he would not have known just how to answer you if you had asked him
what was his philosophy of life. He was range-bred--as purely Western
as were the cattle he tended--but he was not altogether ignorant of
the ways of the world, past or present. He had that smattering of