"You don't?" he exclaimed. "When they are coming here, believing I did it! They must believe it, all of them! And my father--after all this time--They agreed not to tell him. Yet he has found out. That letter, up at the waterhole--it was from his lawyers. He had cut me off--branded me as an outcast." "Without waiting to hear your side--without asking you to explain? How unjust! how unfair!" cried Isobel. Ashton winced. "I--I told you I--my record was against me. But I was his son--he had no right to brand me as a--a thief! My valet read the letter. He must have told the guide--the scoundrels!" Tears of chagrin gathered in the young man's dark eyes. He bit his lip until the blood ran. "O-o-oh!" sighed the girl. "It's all been frightfully unjust! You haven't had fair play! I shall tell Mr. Blake." "No, not him!--not him!" Ashton's voice was almost shrill. "All I wish is to slip away, before they see me." "You don't mean, run away?" she said, quietly placing her little gauntlet-gloved hand on his arm. "You're not going to run away, Lafe." "What else?" he asked, his eyes dark with bitter despair. "Would you have me return, to be booted off the range when they tell your father?" "Just wait and see," she replied, gazing at him with a reassuring smile. "You've proved yourself a right smart puncher--for a tenderfoot. You're in the West, the good old-style West, where it's a man's present record that counts; not what he has been or what he has done. No, you're not going to run. You're going to face it out--and going to stay to learn your new profession of puncher and--_man_!" "But they will not wish to associate with me." "Yes, they will," she predicted. "I shall see to that." He took heart a little from her cheery, positive assurance. "Well, if you insist, I shall not go until they show--" "They'll not recognize you at first. That will give me a chance to speak before they can say anything disagreeable. I'm sure Mr. Blake will understand." "But--Genevieve?" "If she married him when he was as rough as you say, and if he agrees to let bygones be bygones, you need have no fear of Mrs. Blake. Only be sure to go into raptures over the baby. Tell her it's the perfect image of its father." "What if it isn't?" objected Ashton gloomily. She dimpled. "One must allow for the difference in age; and there's always some resemblance--each must have a mouth and eyes and ears and a nose." He caught himself on the verge of laughter. Her eyes were fixed upon him, pure and honest and dancing with mirth. A sudden flood of crimson swept up his face from his bristly, tanned chin to his white forehead. He averted his gaze from hers. "You're _good_!" he choked out. "I don't deserve--But I can't go--when you tell me to stay!" "Of course you can't," she lightly rejoined. "Look! There's the train coming. Push on the lines!" CHAPTER XII THE MEETING