CHAPTER VI
"BOB"
Five minutes after leaving the kitchen of the ranchhouse Calumet stood beside the rotted rails of the corral fence near the stable, frowning, fully conscious that he had been worsted in the verbal battle just ended. He was filled with a disagreeable sense of impotence; he felt small, mean, cheap, and uncomfortable, and was oppressed with indecision. In short, he felt that he was not the same man who had ridden up to the Lazy Y ranchhouse at twilight the night before—in twelve hours a change had come over him. And Betty had wrought it. He knew that.
Had he only to do with Malcolm—or any man, for that matter—there would have been no doubt of his course. He would have hustled out Malcolm or any other man long before this, and there would have been an end to it. But Bett
