Florence rolled down her sleeves and sighed with assumed regret.  “I ought to stay here and work.”

“I’ll help you when we come back, if you like.”

“Very well.”  She said it hesitatingly.

“All right.  I’ll get your horse ready for you.”

Scotty watched them peculiarly, Molly doubtfully, as they rode out of the ranch yard; but neither made any comment, and they moved away in silence.

“That’s an odd looking pony you’ve got there,” remarked the girl critically, when they had turned into the half-beaten trail which led south.  “How does it happen you’re on him instead of the other?”

Ben patted the smooth neck before him, and the pony twitched his ears appreciatively.

“Buckskin and I had the misfortune not to meet until lately.  We just got acquainted a few days ago.”

The girl glanced at her companion quickly and caught the look upon his face.

“I believe you’re fonder of your horses and cattle and things than you are of people,” she flashed.

The man’s hand continued patting the pony’s yellow neck.

“More fond than I am of some people, maybe you meant to say.”

“Perhaps so,” she conceded.

“Yes, I think I am,” he admitted.  “They’re more worthy.  They never abuse a kindness, and never come down to the insult of class distinctions.  They’re the same to-day, to-morrow, a year from now.  They’ll work themselves to death for you, instead of sacrificing you to their personal gain.  Yes, they make better friends than some people.”

Florence smiled as she glanced at her companion.

“Is that what you want to tell me?  If it is, seeing I’ve just made my choice and decided to return to civilization and mingle with human beings of whom you have such a poor opinion, I think we may as well go back.  Mamma and I have been racking our brains for two days to find a place for the china, and I’ve just thought of one.”

Blair was silent a moment; then he said, “I promised to return whenever you wished, but I’ve not said what I wanted to say yet.”

Florence looked at the speaker with feigned surprise.  “Is that so?  I’m very curious to hear!”

Ben returned the look deliberately.  “You’d like to hear now what I have to say?”

The girl’s breath came more quickly, but she persisted in her banter.  “I can scarcely wait!”

The line of the youth’s big jaw tightened, “I won’t keep you in suspense any longer then.  First of all, I want to relate a little personal history.  I was eight years old, as you know, when I was taken into the Box R ranch.  In those eight years, as far as I can remember, not one person except Mr. Rankin ever called at my mother’s home.”

Again the girl felt a thrill of anticipation, but the brown eyes opened archly.  “You must have kept a big fierce dog, or—­or something.”

“No, that was not the reason.”