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Left alone the big, blue stallion turned his alert head and looked at the men on the porch, drawing a deep breath and rolling the wheel in his half-breed bit.

It was as the bearded man had said—intelligence in a marked degree looked out of the starry eyes in the blue face. That individual reached out a covetous hand, but the horse did not move. He knew his business too well as Kate Cathrew’s servant.

Inside the store the woman took two letters which McKane gave her from the dingy pigeonholes that did duty as post office, read them, frowned and put them in the pocket of her leather riding skirt. Then she selected a few things from the shelves which she stowed in a flour-sack and was ready to go. McKane followed her close, his eyes searching her face with ill-concealed desire. She did not notice the men on the porch, who regarded her frankly, but passed out among them as though they were not there. It was this cool insolence which cleared the path before her wherever she appeared, as if all observers, feeling the inferiority her disdain implied, acknowledged it.