Beulah Rutherford was not the kind of girl he had thought of as a sweetheart in his daydreams.  His fancies had hovered hazily about some imaginary college girl, one skilled in the finesse of the rules that society teaches young women in self-defense.  Instead, he had fallen in love with a girl who could not play the social game at all.  She was almost the only one he had known who never used any perfume; yet her atmosphere was fragrant as one of the young pines in her own mountain park.  The young school-teacher was vital, passionate, and—­he suspected—­fiercely tender.  For her lover there would be rare gifts in her eyes, wonderful largesse in her smile.  The man who could qualify as her husband must be clean and four-square and game from the soles of his feet up—­such a man as Dave Dingwell, except that the cattleman was ten years too old for her.

Her husband!  What was he thinking about?  Roy brought his bolting thoughts up with a round turn.  There could be no question of marriage between her father’s daughter and his father’s son.  Hal Rutherford had put that out of doubt on the day when he had ridden to the Elephant Corral to murder Sheriff Beaudry.  No decent man could marry the daughter of the man who had killed his father in cold blood.  Out of such a wedding could come only sorrow and tragedy.

And if this were not bar enough between them, there was another.  Beulah Rutherford could never marry a man who was a physical coward.  It was a dear joy to his soul that she had broken down and wept and clung to him.  But this was the sex privilege of even a brave woman.  A man had to face danger with a nerve of tested iron, and that was a thing he could never do.

Roy was stretched on the moss face down, his chin resting on the two cupped palms of his hands.  Suddenly he sat up, every nerve tense and alert.  Silently he got to his feet and stole down into the aspen grove.  With great caution he worked his way into the grove and peered through to the hillside beyond.  A man was standing by the edge of the prospect hole.  He was looking down into it.  Young Beaudry recognized the heavy, slouch figure at the first glance.

Not for an instant did he hesitate about what he meant to do.  The hour had come when he and Dan Meldrum must have an accounting.  From its holster he drew his revolver and crept forward toward the bad man.  His eyes were cold and hard as chilled steel.  He moved with the long, soft stride of a panther crouched for the kill.  Not till the whole thing was over did he remember that for once the ghost of fear had been driven from his soul.  He thought only of the wrongs of Beulah Rutherford, the girl who had fallen asleep in the absolute trust that he would guard her from all danger.  This scoundrel had given her two days of living hell.  Roy swore to pay the fellow in full.

Meldrum turned.  He recognized Beaudry with a snarl of rage and terror.  Except one of the Rutherfords there was no man on earth he less wanted to meet.  The forty-four in his hand jerked up convulsively.  The miscreant was in two minds whether to let fly or wait.