She finally left her old friend and turned her horse's head back toward Harris' still as much perturbed in heart as when McCullen knocked at her school-house door. She tormented herself with unanswerable questions, arriving always at the same conclusion--that after all it only seemed reasonable to suppose Livingston should be married. It explained his conduct toward her perfectly. She wondered what the woman, Helene, had done to deserve such unforgiveness from one who, above all men, was the most tender and thoughtful. She concluded that it must have been something dreadful, and, oddly for her, began to feel sorry for him. She saw him when she reached the top of the divide, riding half a mile away toward his ranch buildings. Then a certain feeling of ownership, of pride, took possession of her, crowding everything before it. How well he sat his horse, in his English fashion, she thought. What a physique, what grace of strength! Then he disappeared from her sight as his horse plunged into the brush of the creek-bottom, and Hope, drawing a long breath, spurred up her own horse until she was safely out of sight of ranch and ranch-buildings. A bend in the road brought her face to face with Long Bill and Shorty Smith. "Hello," said Shorty Smith, drawing rein beside her. "I was a lookin' for you." "Really," said the girl, stopping beside him and calmly contemplating both men. "Yep," nodded Long Bill politely, "we was huntin' fer you, Miss Hathaway." "You see it's like this," explained Shorty Smith; "the old man, he ain't a-doin' very well. I reckon it's his age. That there wound of his'n won't heal, so we thought mebby you had some arnica salve er something sort o' soothin' to dope him with." "I haven't the salve, but I might go over there myself if you want an anodyne," replied Hope, unsmiling at the men's blank faces. "I'm goin' to ride to town to-morrow and I reckoned if you didn't have no salve you could send in for it." "Oh, I see!" Hope's exclamation came involuntarily. "What do you want to get for him and how much money do you want for it?" "Well, you see, he needs considerable. Ain't got nothin' comfortable over there; nothin' to eat, wear--nothin' at all." "All right," replied the girl in her cool, even tone. "I'll see that he is supplied with everything, but will attend to the matter myself. Good-evening!" She rode past them rapidly, and they, outwitted in their little scheme for whisky-money, rode on their way toward old Peter's basin. Sydney's horse stood outside of Harris'. He left a group of men who were waiting the call for supper, and came out in the road to meet the girl when she rode up. "I have been waiting for you," he said. "And I have been over to camp and around the cattle with Jim," she replied. "Then come on and ride back up the road with me a ways, I want to see you," said Carter, picking up the bridle reins from the ground. "But Louisa----" she demurred.