THE white-rimmed eyes of the porter rolled admiringly toward McCoy as the cattleman disappeared into the sleeper. “Some kick, b’lieve me!” he murmured to the world at large. Rowan stopped at the section where Norma Tait sat. “I’m going forward to the day coach,” he explained. “If there’s anything I can do for you, Norma, now or at any time, I want you to call on me.” The woman looked at him, a man from his soles up, coffee-brown, lean, steady as a ground-sunk rock. She knew his standing in the countryside. His fellows liked him, trusted him, followed him, for by the grace of Heaven he had been born a leader of men. McCoy was no plaster saint. The wild and sometimes lawless way of his kind he had trodden, but always there burned in him the dynamic spark of self-respect that lifted him above meanness, held him to loyalty and decency. It came to her with a surge of emotion that here a woman’s love could find safe anchorage. What a fool she had been to throw him aside in the pride of her youth! “Why should I ask favours of you? What have I ever done but bring trouble and unhappiness to you?” she cried in a low voice. “Never mind that. If there’s anything I can do for you I’m here to do it.” She gulped down a sob. “No, you’ve done enough for me—too much. Joe will hear that you drove me to town. He’ll make trouble for you. I know him.” A faint flush of anger dyed her thin cheeks. “No, I’ll go my road and you’ll go yours. I’m an old woman already in my feelings. I’m burned out, seems like. But you’re young. Forget there was ever such a girl as Norma Davis.” He hesitated, uncertain what to say, and while he groped she spoke again: “There’s a girl waiting for you somewhere, Rowan. Go and find her—and marry her.” Beneath the tan he flushed, but his eyes did not waver. “I’m going to her now, Norma.” “Now?” Her surprised glance swept the dark, new suit and the modish straw hat. “She’s waiting for me at Cheyenne. We’re to be married to-morrow.” After just an instant came the woman’s little, whispered cry: “Be good to her, Rowan.” He nodded, then shook hands with her. “And you be good to yourself, Norma. Better luck ahead.” She gave a little wry smile. “Good-bye!” McCoy passed forward to the day coach. From the train butcher he bought a magazine and settled himself for a long ride. He intended to spend the night where he was, even if a vacant berth should develop later in the sleeper. Tait would mole out quite enough evidence against him without any additional data supplied by indiscretion. At Red Gulch a big, tanned Westerner entered the car and stopped beside the cattleman. “’Lo, Mac,” he nodded genially. “’Lo, Sheriff! Ain’t you off your range?” The big man was booted and spurred. As he sat down something metallic on his hip struck the woodwork of the seat arm. “Been looking for a horse thief I heard was at Red Gulch. False alarm,” he explained. “We can’t any of us strike a warm trail every time.”