That Stewart loved her Madeline could not help but see.  She endeavored to think of him as one of the many who, she was glad to know, liked her.  But she could not regulate her thoughts to fit the order her intelligence prescribed.  Thought of Stewart dissociated itself from thought of the other cowboys.  When she discovered this she felt a little surprise and annoyance.  Then she interrogated herself, and concluded that it was not that Stewart was so different from his comrades, but that circumstances made him stand out from them.  She recalled her meeting with him that night when he had tried to force her to marry him.  This was unforgettable in itself.  She called subsequent mention of him, and found it had been peculiarly memorable.  The man and his actions seemed to hinge on events.  Lastly, the fact standing clear of all others in its relation to her interest was that he had been almost ruined, almost lost, and she had saved him.  That alone was sufficient to explain why she thought of him differently.  She had befriended, uplifted the other cowboys; she had saved Stewart’s life.  To be sure, he had been a ruffian, but a woman could not save the life of even a ruffian without remembering it with gladness.  Madeline at length decided her interest in Stewart was natural, and that her deeper feeling was pity.  Perhaps the interest had been forced from her; however, she gave the pity as she gave everything.

Stewart recovered his strength, though not in time to ride at the spring round-up; and Stillwell discussed with Madeline the advisability of making the cowboy his foreman.

“Wal, Gene seems to be gettin’ along,” said Stillwell.  “But he ain’t like his old self.  I think more of him at thet.  But where’s his spirit?  The boys’d ride rough-shod all over him.  Mebbe I’d do best to wait longer now, as the slack season is on.  All the same, if those vaquero of Don Carlos’s don’t lay low I’ll send Gene over there.  Thet’ll wake him up.”

A few days afterward Stillwell came to Madeline, rubbing his big hands in satisfaction and wearing a grin that was enormous.

“Miss Majesty, I reckon before this I’ve said things was amazin’ strange.  But now Gene Stewart has gone an’ done it!  Listen to me.  Them Greasers down on our slope hev been gettin’ prosperous.  They’re growin’ like bad weeds.  An’ they got a new padre—­the little old feller from El Cajon, Padre Marcos.  Wal, this was all right, all the boys thought, except Gene.  An’ he got blacker ’n thunder an’ roared round like a dehorned bull.  I was sure glad to see he could get mad again.  Then Gene haids down the slope fer the church.  Nels an’ me follered him, thinkin’ he might hev been took sudden with a crazy spell or somethin’.  He hasn’t never been jest right yet since he left off drinkin’.  Wal, we run into him comin’ out of the church.  We never was so dumfounded in our lives.  Gene was crazy, all right—­he sure hed a spell.  But