"Yet you, yourself, take the very chances that you shield your men from." The tone was severe and distinctly reproachful, albeit her heart beat with an understanding pride. He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. "Well, the brutes have got to earn their keep, and hay is high this year." "Yes, about two inches, on that part of the public domain where this particular brute ranges," she said scornfully. "He has not been in the corrals for over two years, as I happen to know. I believe you overheard what Abbie said, and are riding him out of sheer perversity. You don't like to be thought afraid, do you?" "No, ma'am," he said, so humbly that she laughed despite her resolve. Then, with a sudden burst of confidence, "You see, he threw me last week and kind o' upset my conceit, and it's been on my conscience ever since. We just had to come to some definite conclusion as to who is bossing this job. He's going to be a good horse now." "Now, as to hating being thought afraid," he went on after a short silence, "I guess every man thinks that way. And yet there is something that every man fears, that he is more or less afraid of, if he is only honest enough to admit it." "And what are you afraid of?" There was much of incredulity and more of curiosity in her audacious question. "Myself." He answered quietly; she was very sorry she had asked. Just as they reached the main gate they were joined by Red McVey; who rode up from the opposite direction. He was riding another of the "outlaws" and Douglass noted that fact with a certain displeasure; his orders had been explicit about those horses. Red nonchalantly drawled an explanation: "We didn't expect yuh back to-night; Miss Willi'ms said yuh would stay oveh in Tin Cup. Bud Vaughan was oveh to-day and said as how Miss Nellie was sick, so Miss Willi'ms allows she'd go oveh an' sit with her to-night. I'll tell yuh about the hoss lateh," he concluded in an undertone to Douglass, whose look of keen inquiry changed to one of concern at Grace's irrepressible exclamation. "What is it?" His words were sharp and imperative. She was pale, but perfectly composed. Then, for the first time in her life she deliberately lied: "The horse crushed my hand against the gate; a mere trifle, but it startled me." "What are we going to do for something to eat?" she said in pretended dismay. "I'm as hungry as a--a--" "Tom-tit?" suggested Red drolly; she had, much to his abashment, once caught him feeding one with crumbs of cake, embellishing his service with profanely quaint ejaculations of delight. "As a wolf," she averred decidedly, "and I haven't tried to cook since I was a little girl." "Oh, that'll be all right," said Douglass cheerfully. "Red, here, is a wonder at making angel cake, and I can boil water without burning it, at a pinch. If you can stand camp chuck for once we'll make out to take the wire edge off your appetite, anyway."