As soon as Bob had cleaned up the dishes he set off up the creek to meet June. The boy was an orphan and had been brought up in a home with two hundred others. His life had been a friendless one, which may have been the reason that he felt a strong bond of sympathy for the lonely girl on Piceance. He would have liked to be an Aladdin with a wonder lamp by means of which he could magically transform her affairs to good fortune. Since this could not be, he gave her what he had--a warm fellow-feeling because of the troubles that worried her. He found June waiting at their usual place of meeting. Pete Tolliver's forty-four hung in a scabbard along the girl's thigh. Bob remembered that she had spoken of seeing a rattlesnake on the trail yesterday. "'Lo, boy," she called. "'Lo, June. I met yore friend." "What friend?" "Jake Houck. He was down at the camp for dinner to-day--came in with the boss." "He's no friend of mine," she said sulkily. "Don't blame you a bit. Mr. Houck looks like one hard citizen. I'd hate to cross him." "He's as tough as an old range bull. No matter what you say or do you can't faze him," she replied wearily. "You still hate him?" "More 'n ever. Most o' the time. He just laughs. He's bound an' determined to marry me whether or not. He will, too." Bob looked at her, surprised. It was the first time she had ever admitted as much. June's slim body was packed with a pantherish resilience. Her spirit bristled with courage. What had come over her? "He won't if you don't want him to." "Won't he?" June was lying on a warm flat rock. She had been digging up dirt at the edge of it with a bit of broken stick. Now she looked up at him with the scorn of an experience she felt to be infinitely more extensive than his. "A lot you know about it." "How can he? If you an' Mr. Tolliver don't want him to." "He just will." "But, June, that don't listen reasonable to me. He's got you buffaloed. If you make up yore mind not to have him--" "I didn't say I'd made up my mind not to have him. I said I hated him," she corrected. "Well, you wouldn't marry a fellow you hated," he argued. "How do you know so much about it, Bob Dillon?" she flared. "I use what brains I've got. Women don't do things like that. There wouldn't be any sense in it." "Well, I'll prob'ly do it. Then you'll know I haven't got a lick o' sense," she retorted sullenly. "You ce'tainly beat my time," he said, puzzled. "I've heard you say more mean things about him than everybody else put together, an' now you're talkin' about marryin' him. Why? What's yore reason?" She looked up. For a moment the morose eyes met his. They told nothing except a dogged intention not to tell anything.