Finally she swung Blue on the down-stream side and shouted the range cattle-cry. The animals turned awkwardly and went upstream, as they had been going before Billy Louise stopped them. Blue followed watchfully after, content with the game he was playing. Where the bluffs drew close again to the river, the cattle climbed to a narrow, shelving trail through the rocks and went on in single file, picking their way carefully along the bluff. Below them it fell sheer to the river; above them it rose steeply, a blackened jumble, save where the snow of the last storm lay drifted. Billy Louise had never known there was a trail up this gorge. She eyed it critically and saw where bowlders had been moved here and there to make its passage possible. Her lips were set close together and they still bore the imprint of her contempt. She thought of Ward. Mentally she abased herself before him because of her doubts. How had she dared think him a thief? Her brave buckaroo! And she had dared think he would steal cattle! Her very remorse was a whip to lash her anger against the guilty. She hurried the cattle along the dangerous trail, impatient of their cautious pace. When finally they clattered down to the level again, it was to plunge into willow thickets whose branches reached out to sweep her from the saddle. Blue went carefully, stopping now and then at a word from his lady, to wait while she put a larger, more stubborn branch out of her way. She could not see just where she was going, but she knew that she was close upon the cattle, and that they seemed familiar with the trail. Now and then she caught sight of a rough-haired rump and switching tail in the thicket before her. Then the whip-like branches would swing close, and she could see nothing but their gray tangle reaching high above her head. She could hear the crackling progress of the cattle close ahead, and the gurgling clamor of the river farther away to her right. But she could not see the bluff for the close-standing willows, and she did not know whether it was near or far to its encircling wall. Then, just as she was beginning to think the willows would never end, she came quite suddenly out into the open, and Blue lifted himself and jumped a dry ditch. The cattle were before her, shambling along the fenced border of a meadow. CHAPTER XXII THE BILLY OF HER Since she had closed up on the cattle and had read on their sides the shameful story of theft, Billy Louise had known that she would eventually come out at the lower end of the Cove; and that in spite of the fact that the Cove was not supposed to have any egress save through the gorge. What surprised her was the short distance; she had not realized that the bluff and the upland formed a wide curve, and that she had cut the distance almost in half by riding next the river.