"I might have," he blamed himself, in such seriousness as if it were the gravest matter he had risked, and not the mere touching of a blood-red welt upon a simple maiden's neck. "I'll be over early in the morning to see if you're all right," she told him as she turned again to her horse. "If you can come, even to show yourself on the hill," said he. "Show myself? Why, a person would think you were worrying about me." "I am, Joan. I wish you would give up herding sheep, let the share and the prospect and all of it go, and have your father put a herder in to run that band for you." "They'll not hurt me; as mean as they are they'll not fight a woman. Anyway, I'm not over the deadline." "There's something prowling this range that doesn't respect lines, Joan." "You mean the grizzly?" "Yes, the grizzly that rides a horse." "Dad Frazer thinks you were mistaken on that, John." "I know. Dad Frazer thinks I'm a better schoolteacher than I'll ever be a sheepman, I guess. But I've met bears enough that I don't have to imagine them. Keep your gun close by you tonight, and every night." "I will," she promised, moved by the earnestness of his appeal. Dusk was thickening into darkness over the sheeplands; the dogs were driving the straggling sheep back to the bedding-ground, where many of them already lay in contentment, quickly over the flurry of Swan Carlson's passing. Joan stood at her stirrup, her face lifted to the heavens, and it was white as an evening primrose under the shadow of her hat. She lingered as if there remained something to say or be said, something to give or to take, before leaving her friend and teacher alone to face the dangers of the night. Perhaps she thought of Rachel, and the kiss her kinsman gave her when he rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and lifted up his voice and wept. Mackenzie stood a little apart, thinking his own swift-running thoughts, quickening under the leap of his own eager blood. But no matter for Jacob's precedent, Mackenzie had no excuse of even distant relationship to offer for such familiarity. The desire was urging, but the justification was not at hand. So Joan rode away unkissed, and perhaps wondering why. CHAPTER XI HECTOR HALL SETS A BEACON Mackenzie sat a long time on his hill that night, his ear turned to the wind, smoking his pipe and thinking the situation over while listening for the first sound of commotion among the sheep. He had pledged himself to Tim and Joan that he would not quit the sheep country without proving that he had in him the mettle of a flockmaster. Hector Hall had been given to understand the same thing. In fact, Mackenzie thought, it looked as if he had been running with his eyes shut, making boastful pledges.