“It is shameful, Dad,” she went on, encouraged by his silence, “or you could tell me some reason.”

“Some reason for not letting him have a gun?” asked the rancher, still with the quizzical smile.

“Yes, yes!” she said eagerly, “and some reason for treating him in a thousand ways as if he were an irresponsible boy.”

“Why, Kate, gal, you have tears in your eyes!”

He drew her onto a stool beside him, holding both her hands, and searched her face with eyes as blue and almost as bright as her own.  “How does it come that you’re so interested in Dan?”

“Why, Dad, dear,” and she avoided his gaze, “I’ve always been interested in him.  Haven’t we grown up together?”

“Part ways you have.”

“And haven’t we been always just like brother and sister?”

“You’re talkin’ a little more’n sisterly, Kate.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ay, ay!  What do I mean!  And now you’re all red.  Kate, I got an idea it’s nigh onto time to let Dan start on his way.”

He could not have found a surer way to drive the crimson from her face and turn it white to the lips.

“Dad!”

“Well, Kate?”

“You wouldn’t send Dan away!”

Before he could answer she dropped her head against his shoulder and broke into great sobs.  He stroked her head with his calloused, sunburned hand and his eyes filmed with a distant gaze.

“I might have knowed it!” he said over and over again; “I might have knowed it!  Hush, my silly gal.”

Her sobbing ceased with magic suddenness.

“Then you won’t send him away?”

“Listen to me while I talk to you straight,” said Joe Cumberland, “and accordin’ to the way you take it will depend whether Dan goes or stays.  Will you listen?”

“Dear Dad, with all my heart!”

“Humph!” he grunted, “that’s just what I don’t want.  This what I’m goin’ to tell you is a queer thing—­a mighty lot like a fairy tale, maybe.  I’ve kept it back from you years an’ years thinkin’ you’d find out the truth about Dan for yourself.  But bein’ so close to him has made you sort of blind, maybe!  No man will criticize his own hoss.”

“Go on, tell me what you mean.  I won’t interrupt.”

He was silent for a moment, frowning to gather his thoughts.

“Have you ever seen a mule, Kate?”

“Of course!”

“Maybe you’ve noticed that a mule is just as strong as a horse—­”

“Yes.”

“—­but their muscles ain’t a third as big?”

“Yes, but what on earth—­”

“Well, Kate, Dan is built light an’ yet he’s stronger than the biggest men around here.”

“Are you going to send him away simply because he’s strong?”

“It doesn’t show nothin’,” said the old man gently, “savin’ that he’s different from the regular run of men—­an’ I’ve seen a considerable pile of men, honey.  There’s other funny things about Dan maybe you ain’t noticed.  Take the way he has with hosses an’ other animals.  The wildest man-killin’, spur-hatin’ bronchos don’t put up no fight when them long legs of Dan settle round ’em.”