horseman after all was a stranger, a man of whom they knew nothing, an
unknown quantity. And so the two exchanged a glance and drew on their
gauntlets and said they must be riding home. Thereupon Bryant assisted
them to mount.

As he separated from them to follow the trail up the creek to the
ranch house by the three cottonwoods, Ruth Gardner called to him not
to forget his promised visit to their cabins. He assured them he
should remember. When the girls were some distance off, they waved
across the sagebrush at him and he swung his hat in reply. Off then
the pair went at a gallop, with the automobile on the road far south
of them leaving a hazy streamer of dust above the earth; the riders
going farther and farther away, becoming smaller and smaller on the
mesa, until at last they were but bobbing specks in the golden
sunshine.




CHAPTER II


As Lee Bryant reined his horse to a stop before the small ranch house,
a man seated on a stool just within the open doorway rose and came out
to join him. He was a man of thin, stooped body; his sandy hair
streaked with gray formed a fringe about his bald crown; and on his
lined, sunburnt face there rested a shadow of worry that appeared to
be habitual. Bryant dismounted and shook hands with the ranchman.

"Well, how are you making it, Mr. Stevenson?" he greeted. "As I