"There, Doug Spencer! You're such a wonder! Of course," honestly, "I didn't do the hardest part. Scott had got 'em all together in a corral before I got there. But I held the herd in a little canyon for a couple of hours while he got old Nelson off the scent. Then we drove 'em across the ridge, down into the desert country west of Mesa Pass. He's going to sell 'em in Mountain City and my share is a good bucking horse, like I told you." Douglas sat perfectly still, so torn by conflicting emotions that for a time he was speechless. Finally, from the chaos of his mind rose an overwhelming anger. "Do you think that's a decent thing to do? A girl, running cattle and with a confessed murderer at that? I sure am ashamed of you, Jude!" "Can you beat a man!" cried Judith to the flaming heavens. "He won't even give me credit for being a cattle wrangler! And he says he loves me!" Doug's voice was furious. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, stealing cattle and running round with that Inez Rodman!" "You just be careful of what you say, Doug Spencer!" "Careful! Why should I be careful. You aren't careful!" "I'm a whole lot better than you, at that! If it's so smart for you to do all these things, why isn't it for me?" "A woman has to be good. It's her job to be good. If she isn't good in a cattle country like this, everything goes to pieces." "It's a wonder you men don't set us women an example," said Judith coolly. "Don't I try to keep you straight?" "Yeh! A wonderful example you set me!" Douglas' voice broke with anger. "Don't talk like a fool! The world isn't like that! The women have to be good. The men want 'em to be, no matter how hard they try to make the women bad. And the more you care for a girl, the more you want her to be perfect." "The world is plumb loco and you with it!" "You're as cold as a dead rabbit!" exclaimed Doug, Judith laughed mirthlessly. "Yes, I'm cold! I'm as cold as fire!" And suddenly she put her head down on her knees and burst into tears. Instantly Douglas melted. He put his arms about. Judith and drew her head to his shoulder. "O Jude! Don't! If I could only make you see it's my love for you makes me so mad!" "You,--you don't want me to have any fun!" sobbed Judith. "How'd you like to be asked to give up everything yourself and stay home like a woman?" "I wouldn't like it. But a regular girl oughtn't to want to do such things." "Why not? I like horses and dogs and the wind on Fire Mesa just as much as you do. And dancing and hunting by moonlight and getting away with somebody else's cattle and all of it. I love it! And you ask me to give it up because you want me to be good. What do you call good, anyhow?" Douglas did not answer at once. In the first place, Judith's flushed cheek in his neck upset his equilibrium, and in the second place he was overwhelmed with a sudden consciousness of the truth of Peter's statement, that he had not a clean-cut idea to his name.