was aroused from his abstractions by a voice which brought him back in touch with his surroundings, and with a jerk. "Good morning," said Margaret. He looked up, hauled off his sombrero and muttered something, his face in one instant giving up his secret. Then by an act of will almost brutal in its punishment, he mastered his feelings and nodded calmly. "Good mornin', Ma'am," he replied. "You found me off my guard; I was miles away." "Why aren't you?" she retorted, smiling. "Meanin'?" "If I were a man I'd stay near my friends as long as I could." "I did, Ma'am; but there was too many wimmin', so I drifted." "Ah! A woman-hater; or are you trying to forget?" "They was all married," he grinned, "that is, all that had any chance to be. They married my friends, which took down th' bars on me. I was fair game when there was any blame which should 'a' been saddled on their partners. So I drifted. You can't use a gun on a woman, you know." "So you came down here to be a mystery?" "Mystery?" he laughed. "Me! Why, Ma'am, I'm so open I'm easy pickin' in every poker game I sets in. Folks know what I'm goin' to think before I start thinkin' at all." "Then I must be even denser than I feared. I am very much interested in what you have been thinking, and haven't the slightest clue to it. Perhaps if I confess my helplessness you will take pity on me, and tell me what you are doing down here; and why?" "Th' 'why' shows you ain't guessin' much, Ma'am," he replied, quizzically. "Why did you join that crowd of drunken rowdies, and act worse than any of them?" "Because when I acts bad, I'm harmless, an' they was not." "Perhaps; but why did you join them?" "I was afraid they might hurt themselves, or get lost." "Father says that we owe you a debt of gratitude; I'm sorry that I shall have to disillusion him." "I wouldn't give him no shocks, Ma'am, till his laig gets well. He ain't as young as he was." "Why did you go to the trouble of seeing that we had supplies?" "Invalids has got to eat. Ma'am." "Why did you stop that--that brute--when he was entertaining his companions with his idea of humor?" "A man would just naturally do that, Ma'am; it's an instinct." "Why did you do what you did the day, and night, that my brother was stopped from going to Highbank for the doctor?" "A man would do that, too; an' any doctor that forgets his duty deserves to be stole an' _made_ do it." "You realize, of course, that you are getting yourself into great danger?" "I wouldn't hardly call it that, Ma'am," he replied, smiling. "There are different breeds. A man might get scared at a pack of wolves, an' not worry about coyotes, at all." "Nevertheless, the danger exists; no man is proof against ambush. Why are you courting it?" she persisted. "Folks don't ambush till they're purty shore about things; an' tryin' to keep 'em from gettin' shore is th' hardest part of it." "Why are you courting it?"