Hoof-beats coming from two directions on the trail. Hilda and Pearse, drawn close in the shelter of the willows, saw the big gray pony that Colonel Marchbanks rode splash through the creek. Just on the further side he stopped. The other rider came on. As Hilda peered through the screening branches, she saw the young fellow that she’d been sure was Fayte Marchbanks pull up and meet the rider of the gray pony. “Fayte!” she heard the colonel call. The young man jerked off his hat in a sarcastic bow and answered, hardily: “It’s nobody else, Dad.” “Where do you think you’re going?” the colonel snarled. “Turn that pony and ride after the men you were helping to rob me. Go with them. You can’t stay here.” “You’re mistaken there.” Fayte spoke confidently, but there was fear in the glance that flickered to his father’s face. “I was with those men, all right. But we didn’t get the cattle. I’m staying with what’s mine.” “Yours?” The colonel’s tone was loud, furious. “You haven’t got a cent but what I give you. You—” “Just so.” Fayte had out his tobacco and was rolling a cigarette. Hilda saw how the fingers shook, but his eyes were impudent. “That’s the way you look at it. You treat me like a child. I’m not standing for it. A man of my age has debts that he doesn’t care to go to his daddy with. If you’d give me what belongs to me—I wouldn’t try to take it.” “You’ve got a big idea of what belongs to you,” the colonel growled. “Get out of my sight. What do you suppose Pearsall and the others are saying, back there?” “Quién sabe?” Fayte shrugged, but he threw away the cigarette he had not even attempted to light. “Hadn’t we better ride back together—show ’em it’s all right?” He still spoke confidently, and started his pony forward with a swing, but the watchers both recognized his relief as the colonel, after a little hesitation, wheeled his heavier mount into the trail after him. They went off quarreling—but they went together. Hilda and Pearse sat on their ponies, hidden, where they were, till the sound of hoofs died away, then rode out. Pearse glanced about, and said, uncomfortably: “We won’t have much time together, Hilda; I’ve got to be on my way. But I’ll ride along with you in the direction of the house. You need to get home.” Slowly they took a little cross-cut Hilda knew of. Pearse spoke again, frowning: “I’d rather not have seen or heard that, myself. You see, Hilda, the colonel’s a member of the Cattlemen’s Protective Association; my company’s in it, too, of course, and I’m here representing them. We’ve run up against crooked stuff that Fayte Marchbanks was connected with before, and we always have to back away from it, because of the colonel. Anyhow I’ll make my report; and they won’t move because it concerns the colonel’s own cattle, and he’ll have to settle it as a family affair.”