hurts."

"I don't think it."

"You think I'm entirely to blame in this trouble with your people. Don't
dodge. You know you think I'm a bully."

"I think you're very arbitrary," she replied, flushing.

"Same thing, I reckon. Maybe I am. Did you ever hear my side of the
story?"

"No. I'll listen, if you will tell me."

Weaver shook his head. "No--I guess that wouldn't be playing fair.
You're on the other side of the fence. That's where you belong. Come to
that, I'm no white-winged angel, anyhow. All that's said of me--most of
it, at least--I sure enough deserve."

"I wonder," she mused, smiling at him.

Scarcely a week before, she had been so immature that even callow Tom
Dixon had seemed experienced beside her. Now she was a young woman in
bloom, instinctively sure of herself, even without experience to guide
her. Though he had never said so, she knew quite well that this berserk
of the plains had begun to love her with all the strength of his untamed
heart. She would have been less than human had it not pleased her, even
though, at the same time, it terrified her.

Buck swept his hand around the horizon. "Ask anybody. They'll all give