"Poor little brat!" he thought. "What chance does her kind have? I suppose I ought to give her one. There is one person in the world who might be able to reform her, and I'd put her in that person's charge if it weren't for wrecking Jo's life." All through the afternoon while transacting the business that had brought him to town, his heart and his head were having a wrestling match, the former being at the disadvantage of being underworked. "I'll go up and take a look at her," he suddenly decided. "Maybe I can tell from Jo's description whether she is his Marta or not." On his way to the jail he was accosted by a big, jovial man. "Don't know where I can get an extra helper, do you, Kurt? Simpson, my right-hand, has gone back to Canada to enlist." "How providential!" thought Kurt. "Why, yes; Mr. Westcott," he replied: "We're well up with our work, and I could spare Jo Gary for a few weeks." "Jo Gary! May Heaven bless you! When can I get him?" "Going out home now?" "Yes; on my way." "Stop at the ranch and take him along with you. Tell him I said to go. It'll be all right with Kingdon." Westcott renewed his blessings upon Kurt and drove on. At the jail Kurt looked in on the latest arrival. She was sitting at a table in Bender's back office, her head bowed in her hands. There was something appealing in the drooping of her shoulders and in her shabby attire. "Now Jo is disposed of, she shall have her chance, anyway," he decided. Without speaking to the girl, he sought Bender and they held a brief consultation. CHAPTER II "Aren't we going to stop at all, Mr. Sheriff Man?" A soft, plaintive note in the voice made Kurt Walters turn the brake of an old, rickety automobile and halt in the dust-white road, as he cast a sharply scrutinizing glance upon the atom of a girl who sat beside him. She was a dejected, dusty, little figure, drooping under the jolt of the jerking car and the bright rays of hills-land sunshine. She was young--in years; young, too, in looks, as Kurt saw when she raised her eyes which were soft and almond-shaped; but old, he assumed, in much that she should not have been. She had found it a long, hard ride across the plains, and the end of her endurance had been prefaced by frequent sighs, changes of position and softly muffled exclamations, all seemingly unnoted by the man beside her, whose deep-set eyes had remained fixed on the open space ahead, his slim, brown hands gripping the wheel, his lean, sinewy body bending slightly forward. His tenseness relaxed; a startled, remorseful look came into his eyes as he saw two tears coursing down her cheeks. They were unmistakably real tears,--though, as he was well aware, they came from physical causes alone. Still, they penetrated the armor of unconcern with which he had girded himself. "What for?" he asked curtly.