The next morning Johnny mounted Pepper and rode toward the SV. He had some thinking to do and chose the conditions which he had found were most conducive to clarity and continuity of thought—the saddle. As he left the town behind he took Pepper into his confidence.

"Little hoss," he muttered, "we\'ve gone just about as far as we can go without stirrin\' up active an\' personal troubles. We can\'t play our hand much longer without folks knowin\' what we are doin\'. What you an\' me has got to do is plan things, choose th\' leads, an\' then stick to \'em in spite of h—l an\' high water. An\' we ought to figger on doin\' somethin\' solid for th\' SV. Any fool can tear around an\' smash things, an\' we\'ve got to do that; but you an\' me ain\'t satisfied with no worthless pile of rubbish; we got to smash so we can pan that rubbish, sort of, an\' get somethin\' out of it. An\' when a feller pans free an\' wide on a cattle range, he most likely will get cows. What else can he get? A man rocks gravel an\' gets gold, if there\'s any gold in it. A puncher, rockin\' ranches, ought to get cows. There ain\'t nothin\' else to get. So we got to get cows, an\' now we got to find out how many cows we want. We can\'t find out exact, but we can do better than guess at it. There\'s a limit to this[100] pannin\' of ours—an\' it ought to be what was lost an\' stolen. There\'s only one place where we can find that out, an\' we\'re ridin\' that way now. Havin\' decided what we\'re aimin\' for, we\'ll let it rest an\' turn to somethin\' mighty close to us, ourselves; somethin\' plumb personal, an\' terrible riled.

"You remember Tex Ewalt, don\'t you? You ought to, because he said some mighty nice things about you; I was scared he\'d turn yore head. Now, Tex was a wise boy; he was amazin\' wise. Do you remember what he told young Slim-Shanks, that there Baxter kid, who was all tangled up with tender feelin\'s? Mebby you don\'t; but I do. Slim-Shanks, he was fair wallerin\' in misery, an\' actin\' like a sick calf. He hung around that gal\'s house like a dogie \'round a water hole. She must \'a\' got sick of th\' sight of him. Every place she looked, there was Slim-Shanks, an\' his hope-I-die look. She couldn\'t get away from th\' big calf. Tex never missed anythin\', \'specially if it was under his eyes, an\' one day young Slim-Shanks got bleatin\' to him, moanin\' an\' groanin\' about his busted heart. What did Tex tell him? I\'ll tell you. He says, slow an\' deliberate: \'Slim-Shanks, some you got to rush; others you got to pique—an\' th\' best way to do that, in most cases, is to let \'em think you can look at \'em, an\' not see \'em. It takes nerve—an\' not one man in a hundred has got th\' nerve. Make \'em keep a-thinkin\' of you without chasin\' after \'em. Yore medicine ain\'t no good—you might try th\' other.\' Now, just because Slim-Shanks didn\'t have th\' nerve ain\'t sayin\' Tex was wrong. I\'ve got to decide which way is best, an\' it\'s tough ridin\'. Now you keep[101] right still while I wrestle this thing out," and he became so wrapped up in the problem that he paid no attention to where Pepper was going; and she took him to the vantage point on the valley\'s rim from whence he had looked down at the posts and their enclosed quicksands; and arriving there, she stopped. Johnny was aroused from his abstractions by a voice which brought him back in touch with his surroundings, and with a jerk.

"Good morning," said Margaret.

He looked up, hauled off his sombrero and muttered something, his face in one instant giving up his secret. Then by an act of will almost brutal in its punishment, he mastered his feelings and nodded calmly.

"Good mornin\', Ma\'am," he replied. "You found me off my guard; I was miles away."

"Why aren\'t you?" she retorted, smiling.

"Meanin\'?"

"If I were a man I\'d stay near my friends as long as I could."

"I did, Ma\'am; but there was too many wimmin\', so I drifted."

"Ah! A woman-hater; or are you trying to forget?"

"They was all married," he grinned, "that is, all that had any chance to be. They married my friends, which took down th\' bars on me. I was fair game when there was any blame which should \'a\' been saddled on their partners. So I drifted. You can\'t use a gun on a woman, you know."

"So you came down here to be a mystery?"

"Mystery?" he laughed. "Me! Why, Ma\'am, I\'m so open I\'m easy pickin\' in every poker game I sets[102] in. Folks know what I\'m goin\' to think before I start thinkin\' at all."

"Then I must be even denser than I feared. I am very much interested in what you have been thinking, and haven\'t the slightest clue to it. Perhaps if I confess my helplessness you will take pity on me, and tell me what you are doing down here; and why?"

"Th\' \'why\' shows you ain\'t guessin\' much, Ma\'am," he replied, quizzically.

"Why did you join that crowd of drunken rowdies, and act worse than any of them?"

"Because when I acts bad, I\'m harmless, an\' they was not."

"Perhaps; but why did you join them?"

"I was afraid they might hurt themselves, or get lost."

"Father says that we owe you a debt of gratitude; I\'m sorry that I shall have to disillusion him."

"I wouldn\'t give him no shocks, Ma\'am, till his laig gets well. He ain\'t as young as he was."

"Why did you go to the trouble of seeing that we had supplies?"

"Invalids has got to eat. Ma\'am."

"Why did you stop that—that brute—when he was entertaining his companions with his idea of humor?"

"A man would just naturally do that, Ma\'am; it\'s an instinct."

"Why did you do what you did the day, and night, that my brother was stopped from going to Highbank for the doctor?"

[103]

"A man would do that, too; an\' any doctor that forgets his duty deserves to be stole an\' made do it."

"You realize, of course, that you are getting yourself into great danger?"
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