“Hungry, are you?”

“I could eat a mail sack, ma’am.”

She stripped the gauntlets from her hands and set about making breakfast.  Jim watched her with alert interest.  He was still weak, but life this morning began to renew itself in him.  The pain and the fever had gone and left him at peace with a world just emerging from darkness into a rosily flushed dawn.  Not the least attractive feature of it was this stunning, dark-eyed girl who was proving such a friendly enemy.

Her manner to Billie was crisp and curt.  She ordered him to fetch and carry.  Something in his slow drawl—­some hint of hidden amusement in his manner—­struck a spark of resentment from her quick eye.  But toward Jim she was all kindness.  No trouble was too much to take for his comfort.  If he had a whim it must be gratified.  Prince was merely a servant to wait upon him.

The education of Jim Clanton was progressing.  As he ate his plover broth he could not keep his eyes from her.  She was so full of vital life.  The color beat through her dark skin warm and rich.  The abundant blue-black hair, the flashing eyes, the fine poise of the head, the little jaunty swagger of her, so wholly a matter of unconscious faith in her place in the sun:  all of these charmed and delighted him.  He had never dreamed of a girl of such spirit and fire.

It was inevitable that both he and Billie should recall by contrast another girl who had given them generously of her service not long since.  There were in the country then very few women of any kind.  Certainly within a radius of two hundred miles there was no other girl so popular and so attractive as these two.  Many a puncher would have been willing to break an arm for the sake of such kindness as had been lavished upon these boys.

By sunup the three of them had finished breakfast.  Billie put out the fire and scattered the ashes in the river.  He went into a committee of ways and means with Lee Snaith just before she returned to town.

“You can’t stay here long.  Some one is sure to stumble on you just as I did.  What plan have you to get away?”

“If I could get our horses in three or four days mebbe Jim could make out to ride a little at a time.”

“He couldn’t—­and you can’t get your horses,” she vetoed.

“Then I’ll have to leave him, steal another horse, and ride through to Webb for help.”

“No.  You mustn’t leave him.  I’ll see if I can get a man to take a message to your friends.”

A smile came out on his lean, strong face.  “You’re a good friend.”

“I’m no friend of yours,” she flashed back.  “But I won’t have my father spoiling the view by hanging you where I might see you when I ride.”

“You’re Wallace Snaith’s daughter, I reckon.”

“Yes.  And no man that rides for Homer Webb can be a friend of mine.”

“Sorry.  Anyhow, you can’t keep me from being mighty grateful to my littlest enemy.”