"I felt sorry for you. I offered to take you off his hands and bring you out here among the hills, where the best woman in the world would teach you to _want_ to be honest. Do you suppose I'd have done it if I'd known the kind you are--a bright, smart brat who is bad because she wants to be, and boasts of it? There is no hope for your kind." It was the longest speech the acting sheriff had ever made. He had been scarcely conscious that he was talking, but was simply voicing what had been in his thoughts for the last half hour. "How old is this 'best woman in the world'?" asked the girl, seemingly unconcerned in his summing up of her case. "Is she your sweetheart or your wife? If she is either one, you'd better take me back to Bender, or spill me out on the plains here. She won't be real glad to try to reform a young, good-looking girl like me. I _am_ good-looking, honest, if I was slicked up a little." He looked away, an angry frown on his lean, strong face. She gazed at him curiously for a moment and then laid a slim, brown hand on his arm. "Listen here, Kurt," she said. "You were right in what you thought about me never having had a fair show. Everything, everyone, including myself, seems to have been against me. I was born with 'taking ways.' I couldn't seem to live them down. Lately things have been going wrong awfully fast. I've been sick and no one acted as if I were human up to a short time ago. I didn't know that was why you took me from Bender's jail. Honest, I'm not so bad as I talk." He looked at her sceptically. Her eyes, now turned from him, were soft, feminine and without guile. He wouldn't let himself be hoodwinked. "No; there's no excuse for you," he declared emphatically. "You are educated. You could have earned an honest living. You didn't have to steal." "No;" she said slowly and thoughtfully. "I didn't have to." "Then why do you? Bender told me you had a lifelong record of pilfering." "Lifelong! Kind Kurt, I am young--only twenty." "He said you'd been given a chance over and over again, but that you were hopeless. I--think you are." "I think so, too," she acknowledged, with a little giggle that brought back his scowl. "You've got a white elephant on your hands, Kurt. What are you going to do with me?" "There's only one thing I can do, now," he said glumly. "Carry out a bad bargain. I'll see it through." "Oh, Mr. Britling!" she murmured _sotto voce_. "What did you say?" "Nothing. Traveling libraries evidently don't hit this trail. What is it the trail to, anyway? Your house?" "To Top Hill Tavern." "Gee! That sounds good. A tavern! I hope it's tiptop as well as tophill. How did you come to build a hotel way off here? Summer boarders? Will there be dances?" "Top Hill Tavern," he said coldly, "is the name of a ranch--not mine. The owners live there." "And does she, 'the best woman in the world,' live there?" "We must start now," he said, rising abruptly and leading the way to the car.