"Meanin' what, ma'am? Why, I don't remember to have done anything. I was doin' a heap of thinkin' just now--if that's what you mean." "Thinking mean things of me--I suppose--for what I said to you." He had been thinking of her--seriously. And his thoughts were far from fickle as he watched her now, riding within a few feet of him, her profile toward him, her head having a rigid set, her chin held high, her lips tight-pressed, and her hair drooping in graceful coils over her ears, and bulging in alluring disorder at the nape of her neck. He was thinking that he had braved, to answer a mere whim, greater dangers than he would be likely to meet in defending her from the wolf-pack which circumstances had set upon her. He was thinking that heretofore his life had been lived without regard to order or system--that he had led a will-o'-the-wisp existence, never knowing that such women as she graced the world. He was thinking of what might have happened to her had not Davey Langan been killed, and if he had not started out to avenge him. Into his thoughts at this minute flashed a mental picture that paled his face and brought his lips into straight, hard lines--a picture of Barbara at the mercy of Deveny. With a quick turn he brought Purgatory around in front of Billy, blocking the animal's further progress westward. The girl started at the rapid movement, and watched him fearfully, dreading--she knew not what. But his smile--grim and mirthless though it was--partially reassured her, and she sat silent, looking at him as he spoke, rapidly, earnestly. "I was thinkin' of you; an' I wasn't thinkin' mean things--about you. I was thinkin' of Deveny--an' of what your dad told me over there by Sentinel Rock. "Your dad told me that you was in danger--that Deveny an' Strom Rogers an' some more of them had their eyes turned on you. Your dad made me promise that I'd come here an' look out for you--an' I mean to do it. That's why I went to Lamo when I had no call to go there an' that's why I brought Deveny to a show-down in front of you. "There's somethin' goin' on around here that ain't showin' on the surface--somethin' that's hidden an' sneakin'. You heard some of them guys in Lamo gassin' about the 'Chief' bein' one of the three that sent your dad over the Divide. "Well, your dad told me that, too--that there was three of them pitched onto him. It was the fellow they call Chief that shot your dad while he was sleepin'--when it was too dark for your dad to see his face. Your dad made me promise to hunt that guy up an' square things for him. That's what I'm here for. Anyway, it's one reason I'm here. The other reason is that I'm goin' to see that you get a square deal from them guys. "An' you won't get a square deal ridin' out alone, like this--especially when you head toward Sunset Trail, where Deveny an' his gang hang out. An' I'm settin' down hard on you ridin' that way. I'm keepin' you from runnin' any chances."