sardonic smile on her dark face mocked him. "You find a sermon in it, do you?"
"Don't you?"
She plucked the wild flower out by the roots. "It struggles—and struggles—and blooms for a day—and withers. What's the use?" she demanded, almost savagely. Then, before he could answer, the girl closed the door she had opened for him. "We must be moving. The sun has already set in the valley."
His glances swept the park below. Heavily wooded gulches pushed down from the roots of the mountains that girt Huerfano to meet the fences of the ranchers. The cliffs rose sheer and bleak. The panorama was a wild and primitive one. It suggested to the troubled mind of the young man an eagle's nest built far up in the crags from which the great bird could swoop down upon its victims. He carried the figure farther. Were these hillmen eagles, hawks, and vultures? And was he beside them only a tomtit? He wished he knew.
"Were you born here?" he asked, his thoughts jumping back to the girl beside him.
"Yes."
"And you've always lived here?"
"Except for one year when I went away to school."
"Where?"
"To Denver."
The thing he was thinking jumped into words almost unconsciously.
"Do you like it here?"
"Like it?" Her dusky eyes stabbed at him. "What does it matter whether I like it? I have to live here, don't I?"
The swift parry and thrust of the girl was almost ferocious.
"I oughtn't to have put it that way," he apologized. "What I meant was, did you like your year outside at school?"
Abruptly she rose. "We'll be going. You ride down. My foot is all right now."
"I wouldn't think of it," he answered promptly. "You might injure yourself for life."
"I tell you I'm all right," she said, impatience in her voice.
To prove her claim she limped a few yards slowly. In spite of a stubborn will the girl's breath came raggedly. Beaudry caught the bridle of the horse and followed her.
"Don't, please. You might hurt yourself," he urged.
She nodded. "All right. Bring the horse close to that big rock."
From the boulder she mounted without his help. Presently she asked a careless question.
"Why do you call him Cornell? Is it for the college?"
"Yes. I went to school there a year." He roused himself to answer with the proper degree of lightness. "At the ball games we barked in chorus a rhyme: 'Cornell I yell—yell—yell—Cornell.' That's how it is with this old plug. If I want to get anywhere before the day after to-morrow, I have to yell—yell—yell."
The young woman showed in a smile a row of white strong teeth. "I see. His real name is Day-After-To-Morrow, but you call him Cornell for short. Why not just Corn? He would appreciate that, perhaps."
"You've christened him, Miss Rutherford. Corn he shall be, henceforth and forevermore."
They picked their way carefully down through the cañon and emerged from it into the open meadow. The road led plain, and straight to the horse ranch. Just before they reached the house, a young man cantered up from the opposite direction.
He was a black-haired, dark young giant of about twenty-four. Before he turned to the girl, he looked her companion over casually and contemptuously.
"Hello, Boots! Where's your horse?" he asked.
"Bolted. Hasn't Blacky got home yet?"
"Don't know. Haven't been home. Get thrown?"
"No. Stepped into one of your wolf traps." She turned to include Beaudry. "This gentleman—Mr.—?"
Caught at advantage, Roy groped wildly for the name he had chosen. His mind was a blank. At random he snatched for the first that came. It happened to be his old Denver address.
"Cherokee Street," he gasped.
Instantly he knew he had made a mistake.
"That's odd," Beulah said. "There's a street called Cherokee in Denver. Were you named for it?"
He lied, not very valiantly. "Yes, I—I think so. You see, I was born on it, and my parents—since their name was Street, anyhow,—thought it a sort of distinction to give me that name. I've never much liked it."
The girl spoke to the young man beside her. "Mr. Street helped me out of the trap and lent me his horse to get home. I hurt my leg." She proceeded to introductions. "Mr. Street, this is my brother, Jeff Rutherford."
Jeff nodded curtly. He happened to be dismounting, so he did not offer to shake hands. Over the back of the horse he looked at his sister's guest without comment. Again he seemed to dismiss him from his mind as of no importance. When he spoke, it was to Beulah.
"That's a fool business—stepping into wolf traps. How did you come to do it?"
"It doesn't matter how. I did it."
"Hurt any?"
She swung from the saddle and limped a few steps. "Nothing to make any fuss about. Dad home?"
"Yep. Set the trap again after you sprung it, Boots?"
"No. Set your own traps," she flung over her shoulder. "This way, Mr. Street."
Roy followed her to the house and was ushered into a room where a young man sat cleaning a revolver with one leg thrown across a second chair. Tilted on the back of his head was a cowpuncher's pinched-in hat. He too had black hair and a black mustache. Like all the Rutherfords he was handsome after a fashion, though the debonair recklessness of his good looks offered a warning of temper.
"'Lo, Boots," he greeted his sister, and fastened his black eyes on her guest.
Beaudry noticed that he did not take off his hat or lift his leg from the chair.
"Mr. Street, this is my brother Hal. I don't need to tell you that he hasn't been very well brought up."
Young Rutherford did not accept the hint. "My friends take me as they find me, sis. Others can go to Guinea."
Beulah flushed with annoyance. She drew one of the gauntlets from her hand and with the fingers of it flipped the hat from the head of her brother. Simultaneously her foot pushed away the chair upon which his leg rested.
He jumped up, half inclined to be angry. After a moment he thought better of it, and grinned.
"I'm not the only member of the family shy on manners, Boots," he said. "What's the matter with you? Showing off before company?"
"I'd have a fine chance with you three young rowdies in the house," she retorted
