Taking pity on the shivering man, Cavanagh turned off the trail into a sheltered nook behind some twisted pine-trees. "How do you expect to take care of your sheep a thousand feet higher than this?" he demanded as they entered the still place, where the sun shone warm. "That's what I'm asking myself," replied Edwards. He slipped from his horse and crouched close to the rock. "My blood is mostly ditch-water, seems like. The wind blows right through me." "How do you happen to be reduced to herding sheep? You look like a man who has seen better days." Edwards, chafing his thin fingers to warm them, made reluctant answer: "It's a long story, Mr. Ranger, and it concerns a whole lot of other people--some of them decent folks--so I'd rather not go into it." "John Barleycorn was involved, I reckon." "Sure thing--he's generally always in it." "You'd better take my gloves--it's likely to snow in half an hour. Go ahead--I'm a younger man than you are." The other made a decent show of resistance, but finally accepted the offer, saying: "You certainly are white to me. I want to apologize for making that attempt to sneak away that night--I had a powerful good reason for not staying any longer." Ross smiled a little. "You showed bad judgment--as it turned out." "I sure did. That girl can shoot. Her gun was steady as a door-knob. She filled the door. Where did she learn to hold a gun like that?" "Her father taught her, so she said." "She wouldn't remember me--an old cuss like me--but I've seen her with Wetherford when she was a kidlet. I never thought she'd grow up into such a 'queen.' She's a wonder." Strange to say, Ross no longer objected to the old man's words of admiration; on the contrary, he encouraged him to talk on. "Her courage is greater than you know. When she came to that hotel it was a place of dirt and vermin. She has transformed it. She's now engaged on the reformation of her mother." "Lize was straight when I knew her," remarked the other, in the tone of one who wishes to defend a memory. "Straight as a die." "In certain ways she's straight now, but she's been hard pushed at times, and has traded in liquor to help out--then she's naturally a slattern." "She didn't used to be," asserted Edwards; "she was a mighty handsome woman when I used to see her riding around with Ed." "She's down at the heel now, quite like the town." "She looked sick to me. You shouldn't be too hard on a sick woman, but she ought to send her girl away or get out. As you say, the Fork is no kind of a place for such a girl. If I had a son, a fine young feller like that girl is, do you suppose I'd let him load himself up with an old soak like me? No, sir; Lize has no right to spoil that girl's life. I'm nothing but a ham-strung old cow-puncher, but I've too much pride to saddle my pack on the shoulders of my son the way Lize seems to be doin' with that girl."