Lize being drawn back to her cash-register, Redfield turned to say: "My dear young lady, I don't suppose you remember me, but I knew you when you were a tot of five or six. I knew your father very well." "Did you?" Her face lighted up. "Yes, poor fellow, he went away from here rather under a cloud, you know." "I remember a little of it. I was here when the shooting took place." "So you were. Well, since then much has happened to us all," he explained to the ranger. "There wasn't room for a dashing young blood such as Ed Wetherford was in those days." He turned to Lee. "He was no worse than the men on the other side--it was dog eat dog; but some way the people rather settled on him as a scapegoat. He was forced out, and your mother has borne the brunt of it since. Those were lawless days." It was a painful subject, and Redfield's voice grew lower and more hesitant as he went on. Looking at this charming girl through the smoke of fried ham, with obscene insects buzzing about her fair head, made him feel for the thousandth time, and more keenly than ever before, the amazing combinations in American society. How could she be the issue of Edward and Eliza Wetherford? More and more Lee Virginia's heart went out in trust toward these two men. Opposed to the malodorous, unshaven throng which filled the room, they seemed wondrously softened and sympathetic, and in the ranger's gaze was something else--something which made her troubles somehow less intolerable. She felt that he understood the difficult situation in which she found herself. Redfield went on. "You find us horribly uncivilized after ten years' absence?" "I find _this_ uncivilised," she replied, with fierce intensity, looking around the room. Then, on the impulse, she added: "I can't stand it! I came here to live with my mother, but this is too--too horrible!" "I understand your repulsion," replied Redfield. "A thousand times I repeat, apropos of this country, 'Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.'" "Do you suppose it was as bad ten years ago?" she asked. "Was everything as dirty--as mean? Were the houses then as full of flies and smells?" "I'm afraid they were. Of course, the country isn't all like this, and there are neat homes and gentle people in Sulphur; but most cattle-men are--as they've always been--a shiftless, happy-go-lucky lot at best--and some of them have been worse, as you know." "I never dreamed of finding my mother in such a place," she went on. "I don't know what to do or say. She isn't well. I ought to stay and help her, and yet--oh, it is disheartening!" Lize tapped Redfield on the shoulder. "Come over here, Reddy, if you've finished your breakfast; I want to talk with you."