sky all stars. Usually he dropped asleep as soon as his head touched
the seat of the saddle he used as a pillow. But to-night he lay awake
for hours. He could not get out of his mind the girl he had met and
taken to punishment. A dozen pictures of her rose before him, all of
them mental snapshots snatched from his experience of the night. Now
he was struggling to hold her down, his knees clamped to her writhing,
muscular torso. Again he held her by the strong, velvet-smooth arms
while her eyes blazed fury and defiance at him. Or her stinging words
pelted him as she breasted the hill slopes with supple ease. Most
vivid of all were the ones at her father's camp, especially those when
she was under the torture of the whip.

No wonder she hated him for what he had done to her.

He shook himself into a more comfortable position and began to count
stars.... Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven.... What was the use
of stressing the affair, anyhow? She was only a half-breed. In
ten years she would be fat, shapeless, dirty, and repellent. Her
conversation would be reduced to grunts. The glance he had had at her
mother was illuminating.

Where was he?... One hundred eleven, twelve, thirteen.... Women had
not obtruded much into his life. He had lived in the wind and the sun
of the outdoors, much of the time in the saddle. Lawless he was,
but there was a clean strain in his blood. He had always felt an
indifferent contempt for a squaw-man. An American declassed himself
when he went in for that sort of thing, even if he legalized the
union by some form of marriage. In spite of her magnificent physical
inheritance of health and vitality, in spite of the quick and
passionate spirit that informed her, she would be the product of her