friendly.

"You're a right enterprising young lady for a schoolmarm, but I
wouldn't have shot Chet, anyhow. The circumstances don't warrant it."

She swung from the saddle and picked her coat out of the mud where it
had fallen. Her lithe young figure was supple as that of a boy.

"You've spoiled my coat," she charged resentfully.

The injustice of this tickled him. "I'll buy you a new one when we get
to town," he told her promptly.

Her angry dignity gave her another inch of height. "I'll attend to
that, Mr. Dingwell. Suppose you ride on and leave me alone. I won't
detain you."

"Meaning that she doesn't like your company, Dave," he mused aloud,
eyes twinkling. "She seemed kinder fond of you, too, a minute ago."

Almost she stamped her foot. "Will you go? Or shall I?"

"Oh, I'm going, Miss Rutherford. If I wasn't such an aged, decrepit
wreck I'd come up and be one of your scholars. Anyhow, I'm real glad
to have met you. No, I can't stay longer. So sorry. Good-bye."

He cantered down the road in the same direction Fox had taken. It
happened that he, too, wanted to be alone, for he had a problem to
solve that would not wait. Fox had galloped in to warn the Rutherford
gang that he had the gold. How long it would take him to round up two