There were many stormy scenes between the general and his grandson, but the boy continued to go from bad to worse. After a peculiarly flagrant case, involving the character of a respectable young girl, young Ned Bannister was forbidden his ancestral home. It had been by means of his cousin that this last iniquity of his had been unearthed, and the boy had taken it to his grandfather in hot indignation as the last hope of protecting the reputation of the injured girl. From that hour the evil hatred of his cousin, always dormant in the heart, flamed into active heat. The disowned youth swore to be revenged. A short time later the general died, leaving what little property he had entirely to the one grandson. This stirred again the bitter rage of the other. He set fire to the house that had been willed his cousin, and took a train that night for Wyoming. By a strange irony of fate they met again in the West years later, and the enmity between them was renewed, growing every month more bitter on the part of the one who called himself the King of the Bighorn Country. She broke the silence after his story with a gentle “Thank you. I can understand why you don’t like to tell the story.” “I am very glad of the chance to tell it to you,” he answered. “When you were delirious you sometimes begged some one you called Ned not to break his mother’s heart. I thought then you might be speaking to yourself as ill people do. Of course I see now it was your cousin that was on your mind.” “When I was out of my head I must have talked a lot of nonsense,” he suggested, in the voice of a question. “I expect I had opinions I wouldn’t have been scattering around so free if I’d known what I was saying.” He was hardly prepared for the tide of color that swept her cheeks at his words nor for the momentary confusion that shuttered the shy eyes with long lashes cast down. “Sick folks do talk foolishness, they say,” he added, his gaze trained on her suspiciously. “Do they?” “Mrs. Winslow says I did. But when I asked her what it was I said she only laughed and told me to ask y’u. Well, I’m askin’ now.” She became very busy over the teapot. “You talked about the work at your ranch—sheep dipping and such things.” “Was that all?” “No, about lots of other things—football and your early life. I don’t see what Mrs. Winslow meant. Will you have some more tea?” “No, thank y’u. I have finished. Yes, that ce’tainly seems harmless. I didn’t know but I had been telling secrets.” Still his unwavering eyes rested quietly on her. “Secrets?” She summoned her aplomb to let a question rest lightly in the face she turned toward him, though she was afraid she met his eyes hardly long enough for complete innocence “Why, yes, secrets.” He measured looks with her deliberately before he changed the subject, and he knew again the delightful excitement of victory. “Are y’u going to read to me this evening?”