She gave him a quick, suspicious glance, refusing to laugh at his slightly exaggerated Irish optimism. “Just meet the people with kindness and courtesy, Mr. O’Neill. When you match temper with temper, as you did just now with father, you merely drop from a superior mental height to the level of—of Gus Peterson, owner of the Box S, who lives to fight and to boast of his brutal victories. Father knows better, and so do you, but he has permitted himself to drop into the ways of the country. There isn’t even that excuse for you at all, don’t you see?” “Miss Boyce, _you_ have the pitiless logic of a _Portia_,” Patrick O’Neill sighed. “For the first time in my life, I humbly apologize for my fightin’ Irish temper, and I promise to be a saint from this moment, so that Stillwater mothers shall beg the little ones at their knees to be sweet, loving little gentlemen and ladies, like the kind, forgiving young man at the ranger station, who would not hurt a fly. And for the encouragement to be that same, I shall choose Thursday as the day which I am allowed by a thoughtful government each week for policing camp, and I shall call if I may, and smile if I am kicked out.” “I ride nearly every day,” returned Isabelle Boyce, with a smile. “Always on Thursday I ride toward Castle Creek. Good-by, and remember that a soft answer turneth away wrath. I shall expect a good report of the week.” “A sweet little handicap she’s put upon me!” mused Patrick O’Neill, as he jogged homeward across the hills. “I’m to swallow my temper—that’s turned me out of my home and my school and every job I’ve ever held in my life! Pat, me lad, the girl is more dangerous than the old man, and it’s well for you if you face that fact at once!” CHAPTER IV. ODDS AGAINST HIM. Cottonwoods and quaking aspens along the creeks flaunted leaves of golden yellow to prove that fall had come, and Ranger O’Neill whistled a love tune under his breath as he rode down to Bad Cañon post office for his mail. Strange as it may seem, he was at peace with his neighbors—or so he would have told you, with a twinkle in his eye which might mean more than he would care to explain. No mother of the Stillwater has yet been overheard in lauding the saintliness of Patrick O’Neill, it is true. But neither had he skinned his knuckles to enforce the rules and regulations of the forest service, and Isabelle Boyce thought well of his efforts and was still quite willing to ride out on a Thursday afternoon and give him encouragement and advice. “But I’ll have a matter or two to tell her next Thursday, I’m thinking,” he broke off his whistling to mutter, speaking to his horse for want of other companionship, as is the way of men who live much alone. “I’ve the small triumph of being asked to sit down with the boss of the Seven L to dinner when I rode up last Saturday to his house. The first ranger who ever did that, I’m sure. It’s something I can boast of to Queen Isabelle.