Boyle motioned her to the trunk of the cottonwood whose branches she had been chopping into fuel, with graceful and unspoken invitation to sit down and hear the tale of his projected adventures. "I've been wearing a pair of these high-heeled boots the past few days for the first time since I rode the range," he explained, "and they make my ankles tired when I stand around." He seated himself beside her on the fallen log. "No, I'm not going to Comanche," said he. "I came down here to see you. They gave me the worst horse in the stable at Meander, and he'll never be able to carry me back there without a long rest. I'll have to make camp by the river." She glanced at his horse, on the saddle of which hung, cowboy fashion, a bag of grub which also contained a frying-pan and coffeepot, she knew, from having seen many outfits like it in the stores at Comanche. A blanket was rolled behind the high cantle. As for the horse, it seemed as fresh and likely as if it had come three miles instead of thirty. She believed from that evidence that Jerry's talk about being forced to make camp was all contrived. He had come prepared for a stay. "I got into the habit of carrying those traps around with me when I was a kid," he explained, following her eyes, "and you couldn't drive me two miles away from a hotel without them. They come in handy, too, in a pinch like this, I'm here to tell you." "It's something like a wise man taking his coat, I suppose." "Now you've got it," commended Boyle. "But Smith, who used to drive the stage, could have fixed you up all right," she told him. "He's got a tent to lodge travelers in down by his new store. You must have seen it as you passed?" "Yes; and there's another crook!" said Boyle with plain feeling on the matter. "But I didn't come down here to see Smith or anybody else but you. It's business." He looked at her with severity in his dark face, as if to show her that all thoughts of tenderness and sentiment had gone out of his mind. "I'm listening," said she. "There's a man down here a few miles spreadin' himself around on a piece of property that belongs to me," declared Boyle, "and I want you to help me get him off." She looked at him in amazement. "I don't understand what you mean," said she. "Slavens." "Dr. Slavens? Why, he's on his own homestead, which he filed upon regularly. I can't see what you mean by saying it belongs to you." "I mean that he stole the description of that land at the point of a gun, that's what I mean. It belongs to me; I paid money for it; and I'm here to take possession." "You've got your information wrong," she denied indignantly. "Dr. Slavens didn't steal the description. More than that, he could make it pretty uncomfortable for certain people if he should bring charges of assault and intended murder against them, Mr. Jerry Boyle!"