value, offset the loss of the horse. At any rate, it was Coburn's business to come around and make his talk to that girl. And she was pretty certain not to be very far away from a gun for a good while to come.
Mrs. Ellison said he could have a horse, and welcome, although she advised against starting to Coburn's while those rascals were in the neighborhood. Eudora had little to say. She appeared to have become self-conscious and ill at ease, keeping in the background, although she offered to drive up the horses for Simpson to take his pick of them.
To this he would not agree, insisting on going on the errand himself. He'd find them in the fenced pasture, Mrs. Ellison said, indicating the direction, which in a general way was back of the barn. They were very likely to be over by the river among the trees.
But she would feel safer, Mrs. Ellison said, if he would stay around the house a while to see if that gang was coming back. Maybe that long-hungry wolf-eyed man was only nipped, and not badly hurt, for it took a lot to kill one of his kind. If so he was sure to rest up a little and return. While she and Eudora might do pretty well in a pinch, being forewarned and forearmed this time, a woman was not equal to a man in a fight. She seemed to come in so much better, so much more in her proper place, after the fighting was over and the hurts of it to be relieved. She sighed, as with many memories, when she spoke of that.
Simpson said she placed an estimate on his valor far in excess of his assets, yet he felt pleased at the confidence, as any man is gratified by the respect and reliance of en-
