"Louisa's all right," he answered. "I've had her out for a ride, and now she's gone in the house with that breed girl--Mary, I think she called her. So you see she's in excellent hands." Hope turned her horse about and rode away with him silently. "I want to talk with you, anyway," he said, when they had gone a short distance. "I haven't had a chance in a dog's age, you're always so hemmed in lately." "Well, what is it?" she questioned. "There's some rumors going around that I don't exactly understand, Hope. Have you been doing anything since you've been up here to raise a commotion among these breeds?" She turned to him with a shrug of contempt. "You'll have to tell me what you're driving at before I can enlighten you," she replied. "Wait a minute," he said, "I want to light a cigarette." This accomplished, he continued: "I saw one of the boys from Bill Henry's outfit yesterday and he told me that he was afraid you were getting mixed up in some row up here." "_Who_ said so?" she demanded. "Well, it was Peterson. You know he'll say what he's got to say, if he dies for it." He waited a moment. "If it was Peterson, go on. He's a friend, if he is a fool. What did he have to say about me?" She flecked some dust from her skirt with the end of her reins. Sydney watched her carefully. "He didn't say anything, exactly, about you," he replied. "That's what I'm going to try to find out. He said there had been some kind of a rumpus up here when you first came--that shooting at Livingston's corral, you remember, and that it was rumored there had been some sharp-shooting done, and you had been mixed up in it." "Who told Peterson?" demanded the girl. "Well, it seems that McCullen laid Long Bill out one evening over at Bill Henry's wagon, for something or other, and this old squaw back here, old Mother White Blanket, happened along in time to view the fallen hero, who, it seems, is her son-in-law. She immediately fell into a rage and denounced a certain school-ma'am as a deep-dyed villain." "Villainess," corrected Hope serenely. "Yes, I believe that was it," continued Sydney. "Anyway, she rated you roundly and said you had been at the bottom of all the trouble, that you had shot Long Bill through the hand, wounded several others, and mentioned the herder who was killed." "She lied!" said the girl with sudden whiteness of face. "That was a cold-blooded lie about the herder!" "I know that!" assured her cousin. "You don't suppose I ever thought for a minute you were mixed up in it, Hopie, do you? I only wanted to know how it happened that all these people are set against you." "Because they know I'm on to their deviltry," she replied savagely. "I'd like to have that old squaw right here between my hands, _so_, and hear her bones crackle. How dare they say _I_ shot Louisa's poor, poor sweetheart! Oh, I could exterminate the whole tribe!" "But that wouldn't be lawful, Hopie," remarked Carter.