"And I do 'care some'!" Dora cried impulsively. "I believe that you are not making the best of yourself, of your life; that you are better than your surroundings; and because I do believe in you, I want to help you. Don't you understand?" Her explanation was not convincing to Smith. "Is it because I don't talk grammar, and you think you'd have to live in a log-house and hang out your own wash?" Dora considered. "Even if I cared for you, those things would have weight," she answered truthfully. "I am content out here now, and like it because it is novel and I know it is temporary; but if I were asked to live here always, as you suggest, in a log-house and hang out my own wash, I should have to care a great deal." "It's because I haven't a stake, then," he said bitterly. "No, not because you haven't a stake. I merely say that extreme poverty would be an objection." "But if I should get the _dinero_--me, Smith--plenty of it? Tell me," he demanded fiercely--"it's the time to talk now--is there any one else? It's me for the devil straight if you throw me! You'd better take this gun here, plant it on my heart, and pull the trigger. Because if I live--I'm talkin' straight--what I have done will be just a kid's play to what I'll do, if I ever cut loose for fair. Don't throw me, girl! Give me a show--if there ain't any one else! If there is, I'm quittin' the flat to-day." Dora was silent, panic-stricken with the responsibility which he seemed to have thrust upon her, almost terrified by the thought that he was leaving his future in her hands--a malleable object, to be shaped according to her will for good or evil. A certain self-contained, spectacled youth, whose weekly letters arrived with regularity, rose before her mental vision, and as quickly vanished, leaving in his stead a man of a different type, a man at once unyielding and gentle, both shy and bold; a man who seemed to typify in himself the faults and virtues of the raw but vigorous West. Though she hesitated, she replied: "No, there is no one." And Ralston, fording the stream, lifted his eyes midway and saw Smith raise Dora's hand to his lips. XI THE BEST HORSE There was a subtle change in Ralston, which Dora was quick to feel. He was deferential, as always, and as eager to please; but he no longer sought her company, and she missed the quick exchange of sympathetic glances at the table. It seemed to her, also, that the grimness in his face was accentuated of late. She found herself crying one night, and called it homesickness, yet the small items of news contained in the latest letter from the spectacled youth had irritated her, and she had realized that she no longer regarded church fairs, choir practice, and oyster suppers as "events."