"Why, yes--yes, I--yes, honey," he faltered. "Who was he?" "Well, he was a--a cowpuncher, I reckon." "Who was Jasper Stuart, then?" An explanation could no longer be dodged or avoided. Houck had talked too much. Tolliver knew he must make a clean breast of it, and that his own daughter would sit in judgment on him. Yet he hung back. The years of furtive silence still held him. "He was a fellow lived in Brown's Park." "What had you to do with him? Why did Jake Houck tell me to ask you about him?" "Oh, I reckon--" "And about where you lived while I was with Aunt Molly at Rawlins?" she rushed on. The poor fellow moistened his dry lips. "I--I'll tell you the whole story, honey. Mebbe I'd ought to 'a' told you long ago. But someways--" He stopped, trying for a fresh start. "You'll despise yore old daddy. You sure will. Well, you got a right to. I been a mighty bad father to you, June. Tha's a fact." She waited, dread-filled eyes on his. "Prob'ly I'd better start at the beginnin', don't you reckon? I never did have any people to brag about. Father and mother died while I was a li'l' grasshopper. I was kinda farmed around, as you might say. Then I come West an' got to punchin' cows. Seems like, I got into a bad crowd. They was wild, an' they rustled more or less. In them days there was a good many sleepers an' mavericks on the range. I expect we used a running-iron right smart when we wasn't sure whose calf it was." He was trying to put the best face on the story. June could see that, and her heart hardened toward him. She ignored the hungry appeal for mercy in his eyes. "You mean you stole cattle. Is that it?" She was willing to hurt herself if she could give him pain. Had he not ruined her life? "Well, I--I--Yes, I reckon that's it. Our crowd picked up calves that belonged to the big outfits like the Diamond Slash. We drove 'em up to Brown's Park, an' later acrost the line to Wyoming or Utah." "Was Jake Houck one of your crowd?" Pete hesitated. She cut in, with a flare of childish ferocity. "I'm gonna know the truth. He's not protecting you any." "Yes. Jake was one of us. I met up with him right soon after I come to Colorado." "And Purdy?" "Tha's the name I was passin' under. I'd worked back in Missouri for a fellow of that name. They got to callin' me Pete Purdy, so I kinda let it go. My father's name was Tolliver, though. I took it--after the trouble." "What trouble?"