She drew back, her hand interposed before his eager lips, shaking her head, denying him prettily. "In the morning, I'll tell you all in the morning when I meet you to drive the cattle over," she said. "Don't say a word--I'll not take no for my answer." She turned quickly to her horse and swung lightly into the saddle. From this perch she leaned toward him, her hand on his shoulder, her lips drawing him in their fiery lure again. "In the morning--in the morning--you can kiss me, Duke!" With that word, that promise, she turned and galloped away. It was late afternoon, and Lambert had faced back toward the ranchhouse, troubled by all that he could not understand in that morning's meeting, thrilled and fired by all that was sweet to remember, when he met a man who came riding in the haste of one who had business ahead of him that could not wait. He was riding one of Vesta Philbrook's horses, a circumstance that sharpened Lambert's interest in him at once. As they closed the distance between them, Lambert keeping his hand in the easy neighborhood of his gun, the man raised his hand, palm forward, in the Indian sign of peace. Lambert saw that he wore a shoulder holster which supported two heavy revolvers. He was a solemn-looking man with a narrow face, a mustache that crowded Taterleg's for the championship, a buckskin vest with pearl buttons. His coat was tied on the saddle at his back. "I didn't steal this horse," he explained with a sorrowful grin as he drew up within arm's length of Lambert, "I requisitioned it. I'm the sheriff." "Yes, sir?" said Lambert, not quite taking him for granted, no intention of letting him pass on with that explanation. "Miss Philbrook said I'd run across you up this way." The officer produced his badge, his commission, his card, his letterhead, his credentials of undoubted strength. On the proof thus supplied, Lambert shook hands with him. "I guess everybody else in the county knows me--this is my second term, and I never was taken for a horse thief before," the sheriff said, solemn as a crow, as he put his papers away. "I'm a stranger in this country, I don't know anybody, nobody knows me, so you'll not take it as a slight that I didn't recognize you, Mr. Sheriff." "No harm done, Duke, no harm done. Well, I guess you're a little wider known than you make out. I didn't bring a man along with me because I knew you were up here at Philbrook's. Hold up your hand and be sworn." "What's the occasion?" Lambert inquired, making no move to comply with the order. "I've got a warrant for this man Kerr over south of here, and I want you to go with me. Kerr's a bad egg, in a nest of bad eggs. There's likely to be too much trouble for one man to handle alone. You do solemnly swear to support the constitution of the----" "Wait a minute, Mr. Sheriff," Lambert demurred; "I don't know that I want to mix up in----"