"Yet you see I do," answered the girl with her swift, shy smile.

"And the reason is that you know I would be riding, anyway. You don't
want any of your people from the hills to use me as a mark. With you
along, they couldn't do it."

"My people don't shoot from ambush," she told him hotly. It was easy to
send her gallant spirit out in quick defense of her kindred.

He looked at his arm, still resting in a sling, and smiled
significantly.

She colored. "That was an impulse," she told him.

"And you're guarding me from any more family impulses like it." He
grinned. "Not that it flatters me so much, either. I've got a notion
tucked in the back of my head that you're watching me like a hen does
her one chick, for their sake and not for mine. Right guess, I'll bet a
dollar. How about it, Miss Sanderson?"

"Yes," she admitted. "At least, most for them."

"You'd like to call the chase off for the sake of the hunters, and not
for the sake of the coyote."

"I wish you wouldn't throw that word up to me. I oughtn't to have said
that. Please!"

"All right--I won't. It isn't your saying it, but thinking it, that