Once, riding on alone after Jane had turned back toward the ranch Beck encountered Sam McKee. The man had dismounted and was recinching when Tom passed him. He looked up with that baleful expression, as though he was impelled to do the HC rider great harm and held back only by his cowardice. When Tom had passed McKee mounted and before he started on his way he turned to shout over his shoulder: "Chaperone!" In it he put all that contempt which small, timid boys put into their shouted taunts. Beck was not angered but that gave him something to think about. Another time as, on his roan, he led the sorrel toward the gate to the houseyard he saw Hepburn smiling at him with scornful humour and when the foreman saw that Beck had seen he said: "A regular chaperone, ain't you?" Tom did not reply though it roiled him. He thought about the remark at length but the thing which interested him was that Hepburn had used the same word that McKee had used.... Was that, he asked himself, mere chance? They had ridden far to the eastward one afternoon and returning long after dark Jane made a meal herself and they ate together at her table. Beck was noticeably restrained and when finished hastened to leave. "Can't you sit and talk with me a while?" she asked. "I could, ma'am, but is it necessary?" "Not necessary to the business, perhaps, but it might mean a pleasant evening for me." He gave her steady gaze for steady gaze and then said: "Anybody would think you were courtin' me, ma'am." She laughed easily, yet her gaze wavered. She asked: "And what if I should be?" This disconcerted him but he replied: "It's likely I'd quit." "I'm ... wholly distasteful to you, then?" "If I was to say yes, it'd hurt your feelings, needless. So I won't. I don't mind tellin' you, though, that the country is calling me your chaperone." "And does what people say worry you?" "Not when they talk about something that I'm responsible for. I didn't hire out as a ... a companion, ma'am." She stepped closer, hands behind her and said: "The first time you talked to me at any length you had a great deal to say about respect. No one had ever talked to me as you did. I took it because it was true ... and I respected you. "Since that time I have been trying to be worthy of the respect of you men; of yours particularly because you are the only one with whom I have talked so frankly about myself. But at every turn you repulse me, drive me back. Nothing that I do seems to be pleasing to you. You pick on me, Tom Beck! Why do you do it?" He eyed her calculatingly. "What would you think if I told you that it was because I don't like you?" "I would think it was not the truth." He flushed and this time his eyes fell from hers. "I would think just that, but I might be wrong." She breathed rapidly, one hand on a gold locket that was at her throat. "I might think that you fear that becoming my friend would be taking a chance ... but I might not want to think that.