“I should think so,” replied Joan, fingering the thin, worn, ragged habit that had gone to pieces.  “The first brush I ride through will tear this off.”

“That’s annoying,” said Kells, with exasperation at himself.  “Where on earth can I get you a dress?  We’re two hundred miles from everywhere.  The wildest kind of country. ...  Say, did you ever wear a man’s outfit?”

“Ye-es, when I went prospecting and hunting with my uncle,” she replied, reluctantly.

Suddenly he had a daring and brilliant smile that changed his face completely.  He rubbed his palms together.  He laughed as if at a huge joke.  He cast a measuring glance up and down her slender form.

“Just wait till I come back,” he said.

He left her and she heard him rummaging around in the pile of trappings she had noted in a corner of the other cabin.  Presently he returned carrying a bundle.  This he unrolled on the bed and spread out the articles.

“Dandy Dale’s outfit,” he said, with animation.  “Dandy was a would-be knight of the road.  He dressed the part.  But he tried to hold up a stage over here and an unappreciative passenger shot him.  He wasn’t killed outright.  He crawled away and died.  Some of my men found him and they fetched his clothes.  That outfit cost a fortune.  But not a man among us could get into it.”

There was a black sombrero with heavy silver band; a dark-blue blouse and an embroidered buckskin vest; a belt full of cartridges and a pearl-handled gun; trousers of corduroy; high-top leather boots and gold mounted spurs, all of the finest material and workmanship.

“Joan, I’ll make you a black mask out of the rim of a felt hat, and then you’ll be grand.”  He spoke with the impulse and enthusiasm of a boy.

“Kells, you don’t mean me to wear these?” asked Joan, incredulously.

“Certainly.  Why not?  Just the thing.  A little fancy, but then you’re a girl.  We can’t hide that.  I don’t want to hide it.”

“I won’t wear them,” declared Joan.

“Excuse me—­but you will,” he replied, coolly and pleasantly.

“I won’t!” cried Joan.  She could not keep cool.

“Joan, you’ve got to take long rides with me.  At night sometimes.  Wild rides to elude pursuers sometimes.  You’ll go into camps with me.  You’ll have to wear strong, easy, free clothes.  You’ll have to be masked.  Here the outfit is—­as if made for you.  Why, you’re dead lucky.  For this stuff is good and strong.  It’ll stand the wear, yet it’s fit for a girl. ...  You put the outfit on, right now.”

“I said I wouldn’t!” Joan snapped.

“But what do you care if it belonged to a fellow who’s dead? ...  There!  See that hole in the shirt.  That’s a bullet-hole.  Don’t be squeamish.  It’ll only make your part harder.”

“Mr. Kells, you seem to have forgotten entirely that I’m a—­a girl.”

He looked blank astonishment.  “Maybe I have. ...  I’ll remember.  But you said you’d worn a man’s things.”