anxious.

"Phil!" she breathed.

"So you bought my freedom for me, did you?" the boy said, his voice
trembling.

Phyllis answered in the clearest of low voices. "Yes. Did he tell you?"

"You oughtn't to have done it. I'll have no such bargains made.
Understand that!" cried her brother, emotion in his high tones.

"I couldn't help it, Phil. I did it for the best. You don't know."

"I know that you're to keep out of this. I'll fight my own battles. In
our family the girls don't sell kisses. Remember that."

Phyl hung her head. She felt herself disgraced, but she knew that she
would do it again in like circumstances.

Weaver broke in roughly: "You young fool! She's worth a dozen of you,
who haven't sense enough to _sabe_ her kind."

The girl glanced at him involuntarily. At sight of his swollen and
beaten face, she started. Her gaze clung to him, eyes wild and
fluttering with apprehension.

"I've been taking a massage treatment," he explained.

Phyllis looked at her brother, then back at the ranchman. The thing was