She came near him as she questioned him, her great, soft eyes pleading in fear, and laid her hand on his shoulder as if to hold him against any further evasion. He smiled a little, in his stingy way of doing it, taking her hand to allay her tumult of distress. "Not much of a fight, Joan. Mr. Hall came over here to drive me off of this range, and I had to take his guns away from him to keep him from hurting me. That's all there was to it." "All there was to it!" said Joan. "Why, he's one of the meanest men that ever lived! He'll never rest till he kills you. I wish you'd let him have the range." "Is it his?" "No, it belongs to us; we've got a lease on it from the government, and pay rent for it every year. Swan Carlson and the Hall boys have bluffed us out of it for the past three summers and run their sheep over here in the winter-time. I always wanted to fight for it, but dad let them have it for the sake of peace. I guess it was the best way, after all." "As long as I was right, my last worry is gone, Joan. You're not on the contested territory, are you?" "No; they lay claim as far as Horsethief Cañon, but they'd just as well claim all our lease--they've got just as much right to it." "That ends the matter, then--as far as I'm concerned." "I wonder what kind of an excuse Hector made when he went home without his guns!" she speculated, looking off over the hills in the direction of the Hall brothers' ranch. "Maybe he's not accountable to anybody, and doesn't have to explain." "I guess that's right," Joan said, still wandering in her gaze. Below them the flock was spread, the dogs on its flanks. Mackenzie pointed to the sun. "We'll have to get to work; you'll be starting back in an hour." But there was no work in Joan that day, nothing but troubled speculation on what form Hector Hall's revenge would take, and when the stealthy blow of his resentment would fall. Try as he would, Mackenzie could not fasten her mind upon the books. She would begin with a brave resolution, only to wander away, the book closed presently upon her thumb, her eyes searching the hazy hills where trouble lay out of sight. At last she gave it up, with a little catching sob, tears in her honest eyes. "They'll kill you--I know they will!" she said. "I don't think they will," he returned, abstractedly, "but even if they do, Rachel, there's nobody to grieve." "Rachel? My name isn't Rachel," said Joan, a little hurt. For it was not in flippancy or banter that he had called her out of her name; his eyes were not within a hundred leagues of that place, his heart away with them, it seemed, when he spoke. He turned to her, a color of embarrassment in his brown face. "I was thinking of another story, Joan." "Of another girl," she said, perhaps a trifle resentfully. At least Mackenzie thought he read a resentful note in the quick rejoinder, a resentful flash of color in her cheek.