“No, we gotta light a shuck,” admitted Jim, with no noticeable alacrity.  He was in no hurry to leave himself, even if he did not happen to be in love.

Billie put his fortune to the touch while he was out with Polly rounding up some calves.  They were riding knee to knee in the dust of the drag through a small arroyo.

The cowpuncher swallowed once or twice in a dry throat and blurted out, “I got something to tell you before I go, Polly.”

The girl flashed a look at him.  She recognized the symptoms.  Her gaze went back to the wavelike motion of the backs of the moving yearlings.

“Don’t, Billie,” she said gently.

Before he spoke again he thought over her advice.  He knew he had his answer.  But he had to go through with it now.

“I reckoned it would be that way.  I’m nothin’ but a rough vaquero.  Whyfor should you like me?”

“Oh, but I do!” she cried impulsively.  “I like you a great deal.  You’re one of the best men I know—­brave and good and modest.  It isn’t that; Billie.”

“Is there—­some one else?  Or oughtn’t I to ask that?”

“No, there’s nobody else.  I’m awfully glad you like me.  The girl that gets you will be lucky.  But I don’t care about men that way.  I want to stay with dad and Jean.”

“Mebbe some day you may feel different about it.”

“Mebbe I will,” she agreed.  “Anyhow, I want you to stay friends with me.  You will, won’t you?”

“Sure.  I’ll be there just as long as you want me for a friend,” he said simply.

She gave him her little gauntleted hand.  They were close to a bend in the draw.  Soon they would be within sight of the house.

“I’d say ‘Yes’ if I could, Billie.  I’d rather it would be you than anybody else.  You won’t feel bad, will you?”

“Oh, that’s all right.”  He smiled, and there was something about the pluck of the eyes in the lean, tanned face that touched her.  “I’m goin’ to keep right on carin’ for my little pal even if I can’t get what I want.”

She had not yet fully emerged from her childhood.  There was in her a strong desire to comfort him somehow, to show by a mark of special favor how high she held him in her esteem.

“Would you—­would you like to kiss me?” she asked simply.

He felt a clamor of the blood and subdued it before he answered.  It was in accord with the charm she held for him that her frank generosity enhanced his respect for her.  If she gave a royal gift it was out of the truth of her heart.

Without need of words she read acceptance in his eyes and leaned toward him in the saddle.  Their lips met.

“You’re the first—­except dad and Jean,” she told him.

The feeling in his primitive heart he could not have analyzed.  He did not know that his soul was moved to some such consecration as that of a young knight taking his vow of service, though he was aware that all the good in him leaped to instant response in her presence, that by some strange spiritual alchemy he had passed through a refining process.