“Indeed?” So much meaning may be crowded into one word with a rising inflection that Patrick O’Neill felt a momentary panic. “I hope, Mr. O’Neill, you will oblige me with your reasons for so astounding a piece of trouble making. I am frankly curious to know what possessed you to commit such a deed.” “It was a good deed, of which I am proud to tell,” he informed her, secretly pleased at the dramatic change he would presently produce in her mood. “On last Friday afternoon I chanced to hear a plan to steal your father’s gathering of beef steers which he was holding on Castle Creek. Peterson was the leader, and they meant to tear down the drift fence between your father’s range and Drew’s, and drive out the steers that way. They would then drive as many of Drew’s cattle as they could handily gather through the fence and onto Castle Creek, so that it would look as though the cattle had broken down the drift fence and were trespassing of their own accord, and it would not be suspected at once that the beef herd was stolen. Castle Creek Basin being brushy in the hollows, the plan had a fair chance of success. “I failed to see the men—and that was a bit of bad guessing, of which I am not proud. But I recognized the voice of a Bar B rider, among others. It was late, and though I could have waited at the drift fence and held them up when they came, I could bring no charge against them unless they had actually stolen the cattle. So I thought I would play a trick on Peterson. “I went to Castle Creek and moved the Bar B steers out of harm’s way—regretting the poor pasturage but having little time to choose a range for them. Then I rode back to Lodgepole, where a bunch of Peterson’s cattle grazed, took them across Squaw Gulch to the head of Myer’s Creek, and up over the divide and through the gap to Castle Creek Basin. It was fast work and it was pretty work, Miss Boyce, and I repeat that I am proud of it!” * * * * * With lips slightly parted and eyes wider than usual, Isabelle stared at him and did not speak. So presently the grin smoothed itself from his lips and the twinkle died in his eyes and left a puzzled look there, which could easily turn hostile. “Would you rather I had let them take your father’s whole beef herd and run the fat off them getting them into some hidden place in the mountains? Or perhaps you think I should have confronted Peterson and fought the lot of them!”