The Song of the Wolf. Frank Mayer

little girl who finally waked him out of this reverie. "Yulie dear, it pays to stay with the game!" And he went in to the congratulations of Blount and his wife, who were overjoyed at his good fortune.

      Down at the Alcazar he found the three riders who had deserted Matlock overnight. "I'm taking charge of the C Bar on the first, boys," he said simply, "and I'd like you to stay on with me if you will. There's going to be a clean-up and a new deal. I'll play square, and you're all good hands. What d'ye say?"

      The three looked interrogatively at each other and then Reddy McVey, the man who had taken the initiative the night before, said, "I reckon we'll stay."

      "That's good! Your pay will go right along without any docking and I want you to go back to the ranch after we've had a drink, and finish up your corral building. And you might tell all the other boys that I won't make any changes—unless I have to. Sabe?"

      They grinned their full understanding of the underlying significance of that qualifying clause, and Red assured him that the rest of the outfit would stay. "They're all good boys ef they are a leetle free on the bit," he confided. "An' they've only been obeying orders." Ken nodded his comprehension and the deal was properly ratified.

      Over at the post office Williams was frankly exultant. "Best move ever made on the C Bar," he swore. "That tenderfoot has more savvy than I giv' him credit for. He's a sandy cuss, too. I was keepin' cases on him las' night and he shore panned out good. Looks a heap more like his mam than he does like th' ole man; reckon that's why I didn't get onto the brand quicker. There's good leather in your new boss, Ken."

      "Kem in yere this mawnin'," continued the loquacious old fellow, "an' says—fust crack outer th' box—'What's th' name o' the feller who sits next to me las' night; the one who was waitin' fer Matlock to make a break?' er words to thet effect. 'How d'ye guess it?' I axes, bein' some took aback—fer I didn't think he was wise ter the play. 'Will ye tell me his name, man!' sez he, kinder impatient; 'I'm in a hurry.' Then I give him your handle an' bymeby he twisted your pedigree outer me, too. Not that he axes me any questions ter speak of, but somehow I slops over without thinkin' an' he listens sharp. 'You're a friend o' hisn?' he says, quiet like. 'Well, I don't wonder none. That's a man!' sez he. 'An he's going to be my manager if I can fix it. I'm Carter, o' ther C Bar!'

      "Say I, 'th' hell ye are! I knowed ole Bob Carter afore ye was earmarked. You don't look none like him.' But his jaws snaps amazin'. 'My father is daid,' he whips out, 'but I am Robert Carter all the same.' I axes his pardon an' he hikes out on your trail. An' I sez to myself, he's some man, too!"

      Douglass going out encountered a lady just entering the store. As he stepped aside to allow her passage-way through the narrow door, their eyes met momentarily and she flushed slightly at the unconscious boldness of his look. Yet, curiously enough, she took no offense thereat, and turned around as old Williams bawled out, "Hey, there! Douglass. Come back yere; I'v got a letter fer you I overlooked yisteday."

      Out of the tail of his eye the man saw that the woman was young, dressed quietly yet in exquisite taste, and that she was extremely good to look at. She was evidently a stranger, yet there was something intangibly familiar about her features. It was not until that night that he traced the resemblance to Carter, when he knew immediately that this was the sister of whom his employer had spoken. And although none knew better than he the disparity of their social planes, he dropped off to sleep wishing that her stay on the ranch would be indefinitely prolonged, for, next to a horse he deemed a woman the most creditable and handsome of divine creations, and beauty he adored both in the concrete and abstract. It would be very pleasant and agreeable to come in contact occasionally with this extremely pretty girl; it would ameliorate the coarse, hard routine of his work just as the finding of a cluster of mountain heart's-ease had often before dispelled the gloom of a hard day's ride. His thought of her was purely impersonal as yet. He slept dreamlessly the sleep of healthy, heart-whole youth and when he waked with the dawn he had practically forgotten her existence.

      And the woman? Well, after the fashion of woman, she thought more than once of the bronzed young fellow who had looked at her so audaciously. As she asked for her mail old Williams had volunteered some interesting information.

      "So you are Bob Carter's leetle gal, the one he used to brag on so much to the boys, eh? Well, durn my pictur', if he didn't have good reason to! You look like your mammy, Miss, and she were the puttiest filly that ever run over this range! An' as good as she were purty! I mind oncet—" and there followed an interminable string of reminiscences very interesting to the girl but of no moment to this story.

      "That feller thet jest went out is your brother's new foreman, Ken Douglass, the sandiest galoot an' best cowman on this range," he concluded. "Of course he didn't know who you was or he'd a spoke to you, 'deed he would! Ken's real polite." The girl smiled at his earnest assurance and said gently: "I am quite sure of it."

      "Betcher life!" affirmed the old man enthusiastically. "He's too da—er, hem! too much polite to some cattle as doesn't desarve it, accordin' to my way o' thinkin'. Why las' night he actoolly waited for a feller to begin killin' of him before drawin' his own gun! It waz plumb downright keerless o' him, an' some day he'll get it good an' plenty ef he don't watch out!"

      Then, seeing the look of white consternation in the girl's face, he shut up like a clam, saying only that Ken could "take a plenty good keer o' hisself, when he wanted to." She went away, wondering what manner of man that could be who had not his own personal welfare constantly in mind, that being proverbially the first law of nature. Her wonder increased when, on casually mentioning her chance encounter with him, Mrs. Vaughan had acquainted her with as much of Douglass's record as was common property. It was so new to her, so abnormal in every particular when compared with her own code of ethics, that she was a little bewildered. She was shocked not a little at Mrs. Vaughan's frank enjoyment of the watering-trough episode and the ensuing bravado of the dare-devil fellow who had deliberately entered the lion's den to intensify the indignity put upon her brother's outfit. Yet somehow the indomitable courage of the man appealed to her strongly; all women love personal valor and this was the most exaggerated example of it that had ever come to her notice. She distinctly disapproved of the motive of it, but she blushed to think how glad she was that he had come safely out of the jaws of death with colors flying.

      Strangely enough, she appreciated the Alcazar incident to the full, and at her brother's graphic relation evinced no surprise. She could readily understand this kind of courage and she only commended his tact. "He was master of the situation," she remarked, with an insight into the facts astonishing in one who had never in all her life heard a word spoken in anger; "and it is absurd to think that he was ignorantly exposing himself to inevitable death. He would have shot first in any event—and I think he would have hit." A conclusion so prescient that her brother gasped with astonishment.

      "I guess your estimate of him tallies with mine, sis," he said teasingly. "I fell in love with him at first sight."

      "How perfectly absurd!" she returned, with a rebuking hauteur, and deftly changing the subject proceeded to regale Mrs. Vaughan with the details of New York's latest operatic sensation. But she relented enough to clasp her soft white arm about her brother's neck just before retiring that night and whisper:

      "It was very lovely and noble of him to try and send you out of danger. Oh! Bobbie, what would I have done if—"

      Carter kissed her tenderly. "It was the whitest thing I ever saw, Gracie, and I want you to try and help me make it up to him. The man is a gentleman, too, no matter what his past has been. And with your aid we will keep him such. Besides, our fortune is in his hands to all intents and purposes and something tells me we are going to owe him much in the days to come."

      It may have been telepathy, and then again it may have only been coincidence; but certain it is that at the very moment Grace Carter knelt beside her little white bed, Ken Douglass sitting on the edge of his bunk took from about his neck a slender gold chain to which was attached a locket, opened it with trembling hands and laid his lips with infinite tenderness and reverence on the mouth of the sweet-faced woman pictured therein.

      "Oh! Mother," he prayed, "help me to make good!"

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