“Of course I don’t think you should do anything so insane! But it couldn’t be much worse. Why didn’t you come and tell father? Why did you let days go by without saying a word? Is it possible you don’t know that father and Tod Drew are always at sword’s points over something, and jump at the least excuse for quarreling? You’ve managed to stir up a pretty mess, Mr. O’Neill. You may have saved father’s beef herd—but what is that when he and Drew have sent each other warning that it will be shoot on sight from now on? I’ve had all I could do to keep father from riding over and killing Drew deliberately!” “It couldn’t be for what I did the other night,” O’Neill protested. “What if the fence is down and Drew’s cattle were found on your father’s range? That’s not a shooting matter, with sane men.” Isabelle gave him a withering look. “Oh, how can you be so dense! Do you suppose for one minute that father could ride to Castle Creek and discover Tod Drew’s cattle there, and his own driven over on Picket Pin—because there was no fence broken down _there_ to lay the blame on the cattle!—without doing something about it? He drove Drew’s cattle off with his six-shooter. He killed one and crippled another so Drew had to have it shot. If Tod Drew had been at that drift fence, Mr. O’Neill, there would have been murder! There will be yet, if something isn’t done to stop them, for Tod Drew shot our cattle with a shotgun! For a man who was going to do such great things in psychology,” she cried distractedly, “and instill both liking and respect for the forest service into the hearts of the Stillwater men, you have promoted as bloodthirsty a feud as ever happened anywhere! The only difference is that it is confined to two men, so far—though the cowboys are just as likely to take it up as not, just for the excitement of it!” “I have received no instructions, Miss Boyce, for guarding the morals of other men,” Patrick O’Neill said somewhat stiffly. “But since your respected parent has not yet committed a murder as well as a felony against his neighbor’s property, I have time enough perhaps to curb his homicidal tendencies. A bit of an explanation will clear the air, I’m thinking.” And he reached for Morenci’s dragging bridle reins. “You’re never going to face them _now_ and tell them you did it?” Isabelle’s voice rose to a high note of protest. “They’ll kill you!” But Ranger O’Neill was in the saddle and away, pelting along to Drew’s place, since that was closer than the Bar B. Isabelle watched him out of sight, then mounted and galloped up the road in the dust cloud he left behind him, her heart beating queerly, away up in her throat. * * * * *