"Why, you've made it pretty plain, ma'am," he answered with a low laugh, turning his head to look back at her. "I reckon you wouldn't expect me to go on workin' for you, after you've got so you don't trust me any more. Red will make you a good range boss." He urged Patches on. But she called to him, a strange regret filling her, whitening her cheeks, and Patches came again to a halt. "I--I don't want Red Owen for a range boss," she declared with a gulp. "If you are determined to quit, I--I suppose I cannot prevent it. But you can stay a week or two, can't you--until I can get somebody I like?" He smiled gravely. "Why, I reckon I can, ma'am," he answered respectfully. "There won't be no awful hurry about it. I wouldn't want to disconvenience you." And then he was off into the deepening haze of the coming evening, riding tall and rigid, with never a look behind to show her that he cared. Standing in the doorway of the house, the girl watched him, both hands at her breast, her eyes wide, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed, until the somber shadows of twilight came down and swallowed him. Then, oppressed with a sudden sense of the emptiness of the world, she went into the house. CHAPTER XXI ONE TOO MANY To no man in the outfit did Randerson whisper a word concerning the result of his visit to the ranchhouse--that he would cease to be the Flying W range boss just as soon as Ruth Harkness could find a man to replace him. He went his way, thoughtful, silent, grave, filled with somber thoughts and dark passions that sometimes flashed in his eyes, but taking no man into his confidence. And yet they knew that all was not well with him. For in other days his dry humor, his love of wholesome fun, had shortened many an hour for them, and his serenity, in ordinary difficulties, had become a byword to them. And so they knew that the thing which was troubling him now was not ordinary. They thought they knew what was troubling him. Kelso had been hired to take his life. Kelso had lost his own in the effort. That might have seemed to end it. But it had become known that Kelso had been a mere tool in the hands of an unscrupulous plotter, and until the plotter had been sent on the way that Kelso had gone there could be no end. Already there were whispers over the country because of Randerson's delay. Of course, they would wait a reasonable time; they would give him his "chance." But they did not know what was holding him back--that deep in his heart lurked a hope that one day he might still make his dreams come true, and that if he killed Masten, Ruth's abhorrence of him and his deeds, already strong, could never be driven from her. If he lost this hope, Masten was doomed.