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 Zora put her handkerchief to her nose. Bill saw her round white chin quiver as she gulped her tears.

"You—sure—was!" she said. "But maybe"—hopefully, turning to him with a quick light in her tearful eyes—"if it is a clean herd you can come back."

"And if it ain't," Bill leaned yearningly, his hand put out in expressive gesture of appeal, "if it ain't, Zora, maybe you can come to me?"

She shook her head and turned away, handkerchief pressed hard to her teeth.

"You'll be outlawed on this range, even mother will be against you. What made you do it, Bill—what made you do it!"

Bill couldn't answer that question even to his own satisfaction now. A reason for a man's acts might appear entirely valid when he hadn't a friend on earth; quite different when he had just one friend like Zora Moore. He felt so abject and mean he couldn't say a word.

"I know how you felt about it, Bill; I don't blame you like the rest of them do. Garland said he told them they'd made a mistake treatin' you that way, but he don't excuse you for endangerin' everybody to play even with a few. Nobody will, or not many, anyhow. It would have been better if you'd pulled your gun and cleaned up on 'em, but the way it stands I don't see what there is for you to do but go."

"Nobody's goin' to lose any cattle, Zora," he said. "Hughes has got a lot of Herefords, as fine and healthy lookin' cattle as any on this range—better than any