point where the road wound up over a rocky ridge, his horse slanted its ears and whickered. Looking up, he saw a saddled pony, the reins looped over the horn, contentedly cropping the grass along the trail side. The animal was a pinto, and he recognised it as one frequently ridden by Noreen. Securing the horse, he uttered a loud call, and a faint cry of `Help!' came in response.
Leading the pinto, he forced his way into the undergrowth in the direction he fancied the cry had come from and shouted again. Once more the reply came, but very feebly, and Green hurried. Soon he emerged on a little plateau covered with grass, from the edge of which the ground dropped almost vertically into a gully. At one spot the plateau was broken off sharply, as though a miniature landslide had occurred. Looking down, he saw the girl, clinging desperately to a stunted shrub about thirty feet below him. A narrow ledge gave her a little support, but it was obvious that she was exhausted and could not maintain her position much longer.`Hang on; I'm a-comin',' he shouted.
She had not the strength to reply, but a movement of the head told him that she had heard. Rapidly he uncoiled his rope, and thanking his stars that he was not riding Blue, who was still an uncertain quantity, fastened one end of it to the saddlehorn. The loop he slipped under his armpits, with a grim smile at the thought that this time he was hanging himself over the cliff. At the first pull on the rope the sturdy little cow-pony stiffened and prepared to take the weight; it knew what was wanted and could be trusted to do its part. Choosing a point not directly over the girl, in order to avoid sending any loose debris he might dislodge down upon her, Green gripped the rope and began the descent. As soon as he was low enough, he clawed his way to the little ledge on which she was partly lying. Standing on this precarious footing, he contrived to stoop and lift the almost senseless girl with his right arm.
`Lock yore hands round my neck an' hold on tight,' he said, brusquely. `The hoss'll pull us up.'
He gave a familiar call and braced himself for the strain. The rope tightened with a jerk, they swung loose from the ledge, and were being gradually raised as the knowing little pony paced slowly back. With his left arm and his legs the puncher did his best to avoid the inequalities and projections of the earth wall up which they were being drawn, but both of them were bruised and breathless when at length they were dragged over the rim of the plateau. The girl, indeed, was still well-nigh unconscious. Flinging off the rope, Green staggered to his feet and fetched his canteen. The waner soon revived her.
`Where am I?' she asked weakly, and then, with a shiver, `Oh, I remember! I sat down and the ground gave way under me. I seemed to fall miles. How did you find me?'
`I met up with yore pony. Plumb lucky yu forgot to trail the reins, or he wouldn't 'a' drifted,' Green replied. `Do yu reckon yu can stand up?'
The girl flushed at the realisation that she was reclining against his knee, and that he had been the first to think of it. `I am all right now,' she said hastily, and stood up. `How did you get me up the cliff?'
`The little hors just naturally hauled the pair of us up; nothin' to that,' the puncher said nonchalantly. `We seem to have collected some real estate on the trip, though.'
He helped her brush the dust from her clothes and brought her pony. His matter-of-fact treatment of the incident and evident desire not to prolong it were in keeping with his invariable attitude towards her, and aroused an indefinite feeling of resentment; it savoured of indifference, and she was not accustomed to that form of treatment from the opposite sex. Any of the other boys... She put the ungrateful thought from her and turned to him impulsively.
`I have to thank you again for coming to my rescue,' she said. `You will begin to look upon me as a nuisance.'
His right spur went home, and the pony promptly resented it by standing on its hind legs. By the time the rider had subdued this ebullition, he had his reply ready.
`Why, I reckon I'm plain lucky, that's all,' he said gravely.
`I should have it that the luck is on my side,' she replied. `But for you I should now be--' She shook her head no banish the ugly picture, and added, `Yes I am going to ask you to do something more.'
`I'll be pleased,' he said simply.
`It is only that I want you to say nothing of this--this accident--to my father. My motive is not entirely selfish, though I am afraid he would stop my rides, and I love them, but he worries about me quite enough as it is, and just now he has much to trouble him.'
`I wasn't intendin'' He stopped suddenly. Confound it, did she think he would go glory-hunting to his employer? This aspect of her request had just occurred to the girl.
`You see, he has only me,' she said lamely.
`Yu won't remember yore mother, I expect,' Green said, deliberately changing the subject.
`No, I might almost say I never had one,' she replied. `I think even the memory of a monher must be much for a girl.'
The puncher nodded his head. `But yu got yore dad,' he resumed. `Parents shore mean a lot, an' I guess a kid that starts life without any is some handicapped.'
Something in his voice told her he was speaking of himself. `It must make a difference,' she agreed. `I'm sorry if you--' `Yes,' he said reminiscently. `All the parents I can remember was an old Piute squaw an' her man, who used to travel the country sellin' hosses. I was raised among Injuns. The old woman told me I was white, but she never explained how I come to be with 'em. They stole me, likely. Then a cattleman they sold some ponies to saw me an' made a dicker with 'em; took me to his ranch and treated me like a son. He was shore a regular man. Yu see, he was all alone too.'
`And he is--dead?'
`Yes. He passed out 'bout three years back, an' I lost my only friend.'
She was silent for a few moments, and he guessed what was in her mind. `Yu are wonderin' why I'm workin' as a cowhand when I oughtta be ownin' a ranch. It's easy explained. When my friend died he was a broken-hearted an' ruined man: his wife had a fatal illness a few years after they married, their onlychild was kidnapped by an enemy before he met up with me, an' another scoundrel robbed him of well-nigh everythin'. All he had to leave me was his debt to these two men, an' I'm meanin' to pay it--when I find 'em; not for anythin' I lost, but for what they made him suffer.'
The girl shivered. The threat to the unknown offenders had been quietly spoken, but she sensed the implacable resolve underlying the words. This grim-faced man meant what he said; he would show the patience and tenaciny of a vengeful Indian on the trail of a foe, and little, if any, more mercy.
`They may be dead by now,' she ventured.
`So much the better--for them,' Green replied; `but I'm bettin' they're still above ground. This is a big country, an' I've only been searchin' three years.'
Silence again fell on them, for the girl was awed by the intensity of a hatred which could keep a man on such a quest for so long a time. Then the puncher spoke again and his tone was apologetic.
`I'm shore sorry, Miss Noreen. I don't know what come over me pesterin' yu with my dreadful past in this fashion. Yu must think I'm loco.'
`No, I've been very interested--and sorry,' the girl protested. `I hope you won't find those men.'
`Yo're condemnin' me to a solitary life,' returned he, with a smile, and again she realised the granite hardness beneath the smooth voice. `We are near the ranch now; yu had better go ahead.'
She put out her hand, thanked him again, and rode on. Neither of them noticed a dark face, with sneering, vengeful eyes, watching them from a near-by thicket. Green waited a while and then rode slowly to the ranch.
When Simon came in shortly after his daughter's return she saw at once that something was wrong. The old man's face wore a look of annoyance, and his voice was almost harsh when he said :
`Hear yu been ridin' with Green.'
`Who told you that?' asked the girl.
`That ain't nothin' to do with it,' replied her father. `I'm askin' yu.'
`I went out for a ride, and on my way home I met Green, and he accompanied me part of the way,' said Noreen. `Do you object to me speaking to our boys if I meet them?'
`No o' course not; yo're getnin' me all wrong,' said Simon uncomfortably. `But this feller is new, an', as Blaynes sez to me just now, he ain't told us nothin' about himeslf.'
`So in was Blaynes who gave you this interesting information, was it?' she asked indignantly.
`Now don't yu go sourin' on him. He's foreman, an' it's his duty to report to me anythin' he thinks I oughta
