Arlie sat down on the top step of the porch.

“Boys, I don’t know what I would have done if he had died.  It would have been all my fault.  I had no business to tell him the names of you boys that rode in the raid, and afterward to tell you that I told him,” she accused herself.

“No, you had no business to tell him, though it happens he’s safe as a bank vault,” Howard commented.

“I don’t know how I came to do it,” the girl continued.  “Jed had made me suspicious of him, and then I found out something fine he had done for me.  I wanted him to know I trusted him.  That was the first thing I thought of, and I told it.  He tried to stop me, but I’m such an impulsive little fool.”

“We all make breaks, Arlie.  You’ll not do it again, anyhow,” France comforted.

Doctor Lee presently came out and pronounced that the wounded man was doing well.  “Wants to see you boys.  Don’t stay more than half an hour.  If they get in your way, sweep ’em out, Arlie.”

The cowpunchers entered the sick room with the subdued, gingerly tread of professional undertakers.

“I ain’t so had as that yet, boys,” the patient laughed.  “You’re allowed to speak above a whisper.  Doc thinks I’ll last till night, mebbe, if I’m careful.”

They told him all the gossip of the range—­ how young Ford had run off with Sallie Laundon and got married to her down at the Butte; how Siegfried had gone up and down the valley swearing he would clean out Jack Rabbit Run if Steve died; how Johnson had had another row with Jed and had chosen to take water rather than draw.  Both of his visitors, however, had something on their minds they found some difficulty in expressing.

Alec Howard finally broached it.

“Arlie told you the names of some of the boys that were in the Squaw Creek sheep raid.  She made a mistake in telling you anything, but we’ll let that go in the discard.  It ain’t necessary that you should know the names of the others, but I’m going to tell you one of them, Steve.”

“No, I don’t want to know.”

“This is my say-so.  His name is Alec Howard.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Alec.  I don’t know why you have told me.”

“Because I want you to know the facts of that raid, Steve.  No killing was on the program.  That came about in a way none of us could foresee.”

“This is how it was, Steve,” explained Dick.  “Word came that Campeau was going to move his sheep into the Squaw Creek district.  Sheep never had run there.  It was understood the range there was for our cattle.  We had set a dead line, and warned them not to cross it.  Naturally, it made us sore when we heard about Campeau.

“So some of us gathered together hastily and rode over.  Our intentions were declared.  We meant to drive the sheep back and patrol the dead line.  It was solemnly agreed that there was to be no shooting, not even of sheep.”