“Pat, me lad, I think you’d better not broach the subject of a fishing trip, next Thursday,” he reflected, as he climbed the steep trail up along the west bank of Limestone Creek. “I think you’ll be better considerin’ how you’re to convince Queen Isabelle that you’re a man of peace.” And then he sighed, and grinned as well as his stiff and puffy lip would permit. “But oh, doctor! It sure was one lovely scrimmage while it lasted, and it did the heart of me good to hear them howl that they’d had enough!” he murmured unrepentantly, and flexed his sore muscles in pleasant retrospection. * * * * * With the lip still swollen, and standing askew in a sardonic smile of irony which his twinkling eyes belied, Patrick O’Neill rode with some secret trepidation next Thursday to make his weekly report to the girl whom he had now called “Queen Isabelle” to her face. She listened in silence to his cheerful account of the manner in which he had taught Blanding a lesson in good pine timber, and when he had stressed his mild demeanor as much as he dared, she looked at him coldly and said: “I’ve heard another story of how you, representing the government, cheated Mr. Blanding out of more than twenty-five thousand feet of timber by scaling the butts of his logs instead of the tops. According to your version, he brought the loss on himself, so I’ll say nothing about that—except that as a measure of winning the Stillwater to friendship with the forest service, you seem to have made haste backward. The timber men are all up in arms over what they call a government steal, and Blanding says he is going to write to Washington and have you removed. We can’t very well call that a gain in friendly confidence, but I suppose it will straighten out in time. What else, Mr. Ranger?” Patrick O’Neill thereupon told her of the trespassing sheep and how he had dealt with the owner. “That’s better,” she praised him, “though if I know anything about old Jensen, you aren’t through with him yet by any means. You’ll have to go carefully there, if you want to avoid trouble. Is that all?” And she looked very meaningly at the swollen lip. “You’ve hurt yourself, I see. Did you fall off your horse, Mr. O’Neill?” “I did not,” Pat returned, in a distressed tone. “A Bar B man—the long-legged one you call ‘Little Bill’—flung out a hand in his sleep, as it were, and it chanced to graze my lip. It’s no more than a scratch, for the man was unconscious—or nearly so—when he made the gesture. I’m sure he never meant to touch me there, Queen Isabelle. And now I have to tell you that I had dinner at the Seven L Ranch last Saturday——”