"You're very welcome," she answered, and he could not tell whether
the note in her voice was of fun or sarcasm. "Any time I can be of
service--"

"That's what I wanted to talk about," he broke in. There was something
bewitching about the girl. She more than realized his fantastic visions
of the night. She had mastered him. Perhaps it was a subtle masculine
desire to turn her mastery into ultimate surrender that led him on.

"That's just what I want to talk about. You started breakin' in an
outlaw yesterday, so to speak. How'd you like to finish the job?"

Y.D. was very red when this speech was finished. He had not known that a
wisp of a girl could so discomfit a man.

"Is that a proposal?" she asked, and this time he was sure the note in
her voice was one of banter. "I never had one, so I don't know."

"Well, yes, we'll call it that," he said, with returning courage.

"Well we won't, either," she flared back. "Just because I sat on a post
and superintended the--the ceremonies, is no reason that you should want
to marry me,--or I, you. You'll find water and a basin on the bench at
the end of the house, and dinner will be ready in twenty minutes."

Y.D. had a feeling of a little boy being sent to wash himself.

But the next spring he built a larger cabin down the valley from The
Forks, and to that cabin one day in June came Jessie Wilson to "finish