She smiled. Frederic Dawson, the reticent, had never spoken of the attitude of the Red Butte Western toward its new boss, but Gridley had referred to it quite frequently and had made a joke of it. Without knowing just why, she had resented Gridley's attitude; this notwithstanding the master-mechanic's genial affability whenever Lidgerwood and his difficulties were the object of discussion. "They are still refusing to take you seriously?" she said. "I hope you don't mind it too much." "Personally, I don't mind it at all," he assured her--which was sufficiently true at the moment. "The men are acting like a lot of foolish schoolboys bent on discouraging the new teacher. I am hoping they will settle down to a sensible basis after a bit, and take me and the new order of things for granted." Miss Dawson had something on her mind; a thing not gathered from Gridley or from any one else in particular, but which seemed to take shape of itself. The effect of setting it in speech asked for a complete effacement of Lidgerwood the superintendent, and that was rather difficult. But she compassed it. "I don't think you ought to take them so much for granted--the men, I mean," she cautioned. "I can't help feeling afraid that some of the joking is not quite good-natured." "I fancy very little of it is what you would call good-natured," he rejoined evenly. "Very much of it is thinly disguised contempt." "For your authority?" "For me, personally, first; and for my authority as a close second." "Then you are anticipating trouble when the laugh is over?" He shook his head. "I'm hoping No, as I said a moment ago, but I'm expecting Yes." "And you are not afraid?" It would have been worth a great deal to him if he could have looked fearlessly into the clear gray eyes of questioning, giving her a brave man's denial. But instead, his gaze went beyond her and he said: "You surely wouldn't expect me to confess it if I were afraid, would you? Don't you despise a coward, Miss Dawson?" The sun was sinking behind the Timanyonis, and the soft glow of the western sky suffused her face, illuminating it with rare radiance. It was not, in the last analysis, a beautiful face, he told himself, comparing it with another whose outlines were bitten deeply and beyond all hope of erasure into the memory page. Yet the face warming softly in the sunset glow was sweet and winsome, attractive in the best sense of the overworked word. At the moment Lidgerwood rather envied Benson--or Gridley, whichever one of the two it was for whom Miss Dawson cared the most. "There are so many different kinds of cowards," she said, after the reflective interval. "But they are all equally despicable?" he suggested.