Cullison looked quickly at Maloney and then at his daughter. "I'll listen to what you've been hiding from me," he told them. "Oh, the boys had notions. Miss Kate argued with them and they saw things different," the Bar Double M rider explained. But Cullison would not let it go at that. He made them tell him the whole story. When Curly and Maloney had finished he buried his daughter's little hand in his big brown fist. His eyes were dancing with pride, but he gave her not a word of spoken praise. Kate, somewhat embarrassed, changed the subject briskly. "Now you're talking too much, Dad. Doctor Brown said you might see him for just a few minutes. But you're not to tire yourself, so I'll do the talking for you." He took his orders with the smiling submission of the man who knows his mistress. Kate spoke to Curly. "Father wants me to tell you that we don't blame you for shooting at him. We understand just how it was. Your friend got excited and shot as soon as he saw he was surrounded. We are both very sorry he was killed. Father could not stop the boys in time. Perhaps you remember that he tried to get you to surrender." The rustler nodded. "Yes, I heard him holler to me to put my gun down, but the others blazed away at me." "And so you naturally defended yourself. That's how we understand it. Father wants it made clear that he feels you could have done nothing else." "Much obliged. I've been sorry ever since I hit him, and not only on my own account." "Then none of us need to hold hard feelings." The girl looked at her father, who answered her appeal with a grim nod, and then she turned again to the young rustler a little timidly. "I wonder if you would mind if I asked you a question." "You've earned the right to ask as many as you like." "It's about---- We have been told you know the man they call Soapy Stone. Is that true?" Flandrau's eyes took on a stony look. It was as if something had sponged all the boyishness from his face. Still trying to get him to give away his partners in the rustling, were they? Well, he would show them he could take his medicine without squealing. "Maybe it is and maybe it isn't." "Oh, but you don't see what we mean. It isn't that we want to hurt you." She spoke in a quick eager voice of protest. "No, you just want me to squeal on my friends to save my own hide. Nothing doing, Miss Cullison." "No. You're wrong. Why are you so suspicious?" Curly laughed bitterly. "Your boys were asking that question about Soapy last night. They had a rope round my neck at the time. Nothing unfriendly in the matter, of course. Just a casual interest in my doings." Cullison was looking at him with the steel eyes that bored into him like a gimlet. Now he spoke sharply. "I've got an account running with Soapy Stone. Some day I'll settle it likely. But that ain't the point now. Do you know his friends--the bunch he trails with?" Wariness still seemed to crouch in the cool eyes of Flandrau.