The young woman showed in a smile a row of white strong teeth.  “I see.  His real name is Day-After-To-Morrow, but you call him Cornell for short.  Why not just Corn?  He would appreciate that, perhaps.”

“You’ve christened him, Miss Rutherford.  Corn he shall be, henceforth and forevermore.”

They picked their way carefully down through the canon and emerged from it into the open meadow.  The road led plain, and straight to the horse ranch.  Just before they reached the house, a young man cantered up from the opposite direction.

He was a black-haired, dark young giant of about twenty-four.  Before he turned to the girl, he looked her companion over casually and contemptuously.

“Hello, Boots!  Where’s your horse?” he asked.

“Bolted.  Hasn’t Blacky got home yet?”

“Don’t know.  Haven’t been home.  Get thrown?”

“No.  Stepped into one of your wolf traps.”  She turned to include Beaudry.  “This gentleman—­Mr.—?”

Caught at advantage, Roy groped wildly for the name he had chosen.  His mind was a blank.  At random he snatched for the first that came.  It happened to be his old Denver address.

“Cherokee Street,” he gasped.

Instantly he knew he had made a mistake.

“That’s odd,” Beulah said.  “There’s a street called Cherokee in Denver.  Were you named for it?”

He lied, not very valiantly.  “Yes, I—­I think so.  You see, I was born on it, and my parents—­since their name was Street, anyhow,—­thought it a sort of distinction to give me that name.  I’ve never much liked it.”

The girl spoke to the young man beside her.  “Mr. Street helped me out of the trap and lent me his horse to get home.  I hurt my leg.”  She proceeded to introductions.  “Mr. Street, this is my brother, Jeff Rutherford.”

Jeff nodded curtly.  He happened to be dismounting, so he did not offer to shake hands.  Over the back of the horse he looked at his sister’s guest without comment.  Again he seemed to dismiss him from his mind as of no importance.  When he spoke, it was to Beulah.

“That’s a fool business—­stepping into wolf traps.  How did you come to do it?”

“It doesn’t matter how.  I did it.”

“Hurt any?”

She swung from the saddle and limped a few steps.  “Nothing to make any fuss about.  Dad home?”

“Yep.  Set the trap again after you sprung it, Boots?”

“No.  Set your own traps,” she flung over her shoulder.  “This way, Mr. Street.”

Roy followed her to the house and was ushered into a room where a young man sat cleaning a revolver with one leg thrown across a second chair.  Tilted on the back of his head was a cowpuncher’s pinched-in hat.  He too had black hair and a black mustache.  Like all the Rutherfords he was handsome after a fashion, though the debonair recklessness of his good looks offered a warning of temper.