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 they come through without losing any cattle, and that's going to be hard to square."

"Yes, I guess it runs in the human breed that way."

"You intended to leave the country, Bill," she said, as if reminding him of a good intention in the way of being disregarded.

"Of my own free will; not with somebody tellin' me I had to go. I don't mind dancin', either, but I object to somebody tryin' to make me do it by shootin' at my feet."

"But you were going, Bill—you were going!" Zora spoke almost frantically, as if everything in her life depended on his pursuit and faithful performance of his original intention.

"Yes, but I didn't have anything to stay for then," Bill replied serenely.

Zora pressed him farther, urging him, for her sake at last, to go. But the best she could get out of him when all was said was maybe. Maybe he'd go, maybe he wouldn't. He'd let her know.

There was no reservation in Bill's mind when they parted. He was not going to leave that country; that was a cinch. Not when he had found there the most precious thing that ever had entered his lean and lonely life. He didn't want to set up in business as a professional fighting man, but there was a whole lot of comfort in the thought that if they went to throwing lead he was a pretty handy man that way himself.

He looked around the broad open country, untrammeled by a fence, unmarked by the habitation of man as far as the eye could sweep, enlarging with a pleasant