"If he'll let us." Joyce jumped up and ran round the table to him. They were alone, Keith having departed with a top to join his playmates. She sat on the arm of his chair, a straight, slim creature very much alive, and pressed her face of flushed loveliness against his head. "It won't be your fault, old duck, if things don't go well with him. You're good--the best ever--a jim-dandy friend. But he's so--so--Oh, I don't know--stiff as a poker. Acts as if he doesn't want to be friends, as if we're all ready to turn against him. He makes me good and tired, Dad. Why can't he be--human?" "Now, Joy, you got to remember--" "--that he was in prison and had an awful time of it. Oh, yes, I remember all that. He won't let us forget it. It's just like he held us off all the time and insisted on us not forgetting it. I'd just like to shake the foolishness out of him." A rueful little laugh welled from her throat at the thought. "He cayn't be gay as Bob Hart all at onct. Give him time." "You're so partial to him you don't see when he's doing wrong. But I see it. Yesterday he hardly spoke when I met him. Ridiculous. It's all right for him to hold back and be kinda reserved with outsiders. But with his friends--you and Bob and old Buck Byington and me--he ought not to shut himself up in an ice cave. And I'm going to tell him so." The cattleman's arm slid round her warm young body and drew her close. She was to him the dearest thing in the world, a never-failing, exquisite wonder and mystery. Sometimes even now he was amazed that this rare spirit had found the breath of life through him. "You wanta remember you're a li'l lady," he reproved. "You wouldn't want to do anything you'd be sorry for, honeybug." "I'm not so sure about that," she flushed, amusement rippling her face. "Someone's got to blow up that young man like a Dutch uncle, and I think I'm elected. I'll try not to think about being a lady; then I can do my full duty, Dad. It'll be fun to see how he takes it." "Now--now," he remonstrated. "It's all right to be proud," she went on. "I wouldn't want to see him hold his head any lower. But there's no sense in being so offish that even his friends have to give him up. And that's what it'll come to if he acts the way he does. Folks will stand just so much. Then they give up trying." "I reckon you're right about that, Joy." "Of course I'm right. You have to meet your friends halfway." "Well, if you talk to him don't hurt his feelin's." There was a glint of mirth in her eyes, almost of friendly malice. "I'm going to worry him about _my_ feelings, Dad. He'll not have time to think of his own." Joyce found her chance next day. She met David Sanders in front of a drug-store. He would have passed with a bow if she had let him. "What does the oil expert Mr. Graham sent think about our property?" she asked presently, greetings having been exchanged.