"Walkin' wouldn't bother me, ma'am." He got Patches and led him closer. She looked at the animal, speculatively. "Don't you think he could carry both of us?" she asked. He scrutinized Patches judicially. A light, which she did not see, leaped into his eyes. "Why, I didn't think of that. I reckon he could, ma'am. Anyway, we can try it, if you want to." He led Patches still closer. Then, with much care, he lifted Ruth and placed her in the saddle, mounting behind her. Patches moved off. After a silence which might have lasted while they rode a mile, Ruth spoke. "My ankle feels very much easier." "I'm glad of that, ma'am." "Randerson," she said, after they had gone on a little ways further; "I beg your pardon for speaking to you the way I did, back there. But my foot _did_ hurt terribly." "Why, sure. I expect I deserved to get roasted." Again there was a silence. Ruth seemed to be thinking deeply. At a distance that he tried to keep respectful, Randerson watched her, with worshipful admiration, noting the graceful disorder of her hair, the wisps at the nape of her neck. The delicate charm of her made him thrill with the instinct of protection. So strong was this feeling that when he thought of her pony, back at the timber, guilt ceased to bother him. Ruth related to him the conversation she had overheard between Chavis and Kester, and he smiled understandingly at her. "Do you reckon you feel as tender toward them now as you did before you found that out?" "I don't know," she replied. "It made me angry to hear them talk like that. But as for hanging them--" She shivered. "There were times, tonight, though, when I thought hanging would be too good for them," she confessed. "You'll shape up real western--give you time," he assured. "You'll be ready to take your own part, without dependin' on laws to do it for you--laws that don't reach far enough." "I don't think I shall ever get your viewpoint," she declared. "Well," he said, "Pickett was bound to try to get me. Do you think that if I'd gone to the sheriff at Las Vegas, an' told him about Pickett, he'd have done anything but poke fun at me? An' that word would have gone all over the country--that I was scared of Pickett--an' I'd have had to pull my freight. I had to stand my ground, ma'am. Mebbe I'd have been a hero if I'd have let him shoot me, but I wouldn't have been here any more to know about it. An' I'm plumb satisfied to be here, ma'am." "How did you come to hear about me not getting home?" she asked. "I'd rode in to see Catherson. I couldn't see him--because he wasn't there. Then I come on over to the ranchhouse, an' Uncle Jepson told me about you not comin' in." "Was Mr. Masten at the ranchhouse?" He hesitated. Then he spoke slowly. "I didn't see him there, ma'am." She evidently wondered why it had not been Masten that had come for her. They were near the house when she spoke again: "Did you have an accident today, Randerson?"