"Don't want to hear about it," retorted Bud, divining the intention. "You can do anything you like with me, but don't tell me your bargains. I've got troubles enough with my sheep without signing on any more. Now, look here, men, I don't want to interfere with you, and it only wastes your time to bother with me. Suppose you let me go about my business and you go about yours." "Swear on oath never to recognize or bear witness against us?" "No. What kind of a crook do you think I am? If I were put under oath by a sheriff, I would have to accuse you, and I'd do it." Joe Parker's face lost its expression of genial amiability and he looked about on a circle of dark countenances. "I'm plumb sorry you act this-a-way," he said aggrievedly. "Boys, where's the nearest tree?" "Ten miles." "After dinner everybody saddle up," came the order. CHAPTER VII PRAIRIE BELL When Juliet Bissell rode back to the Bar T ranch after her parting with Larkin at the fork of Grass Creek, she was a decidedly more thoughtful and sober young woman than she had been at the same hour the day previous. Although blessed with an adoring father and a rather eccentric mother, she had, for the last year, begun to feel the stirrings of a tiny discontent. Her life was a good example of the familiar mistake made by many a wealthy cattle-owner. Her parents, realizing their crudity and lack of education, had seen to it that she should be given all the advantages denied them, and had sent her East to Chicago for eight consecutive years. During this time, while hating the noise and confinement of the city, she had absorbed much of its glamour, and enjoyed its alluring pleasures with a keen appreciation. Music had been her chief study, and her very decided talent had opened a busy career for her had she chosen to follow it. But Julie was true to her best instincts, and refused to consider such a thing. Her father and mother had done all in their power for her, she reasoned, and therefore it was but fair that she should return to them and make the closing years of their lives happy. Though nothing had ever been said, the girl knew that when she had left the ranch house, even for a week's visit with a girl friend two hundred miles away, the sun might as well have fallen from the heavens, considering the gloom that descended upon the Bar T. It was this knowledge of their need for her that had brought her back to fulfill what she considered her greatest happiness and duty in life. Now, a monkey cannot wear clothes, smoke cigarettes, perform before applauding audiences and return to the jungle without a certain feeling of hateful unfitness among his gibbering brethren. No more could this wild, lovely creature of the plains become one of the most sought-after girls of Chicago's North Shore set, and return to the painful prose of the Bar T ranch without paying the penalty.