"It don't mean nothing," Pollard hastened to assure Terry. "It don't mean a thing in the world except that she's a fool girl. The queerest, orneriest, kindest, strangest, wildest thing in the shape of calico that ever come into these parts since her mother died before her. But the more you see of her, the more you'll value her. She can ride like a man—no wear out to her—and she's got the courage of a man. Besides which she can sling¹ a gun like it would do your heart good to see her! Don't take nothing she does to heart. She don't mean no harm. But she sure does tangle² up a gent's ideas. Here I been living with her nigh onto twenty years and I don't savvy³ her none yet. Eh, boys?"  
"I'm not offended in the least," said Terry quietly.
 
And he was not, but he was more interested than he had ever been before by man, woman, or child. And for the past few seconds his mind had been following her through the door behind which she had disappeared.
 
"And if I were to see more of her, no doubt—" He broke off with: "But I'm not apt to see much more of any of you, Mr. Pollard. If I can't stay here and work off that three-hundred-dollar debt—"
 
"Work, hell! No son of Black Jack⁴ Hollis can work for me. But he can live with me as a partner, son, and he can have everything I got, half and half, and the bigger half to him if he asks for it. That's straight!"
 
Terry raised a protesting hand. Yet he was touched—intimately touched. He had tried hard to fit in his place among the honest people of the mountains by hard and patient work. They would have none of him. His own kind turned him out. And among these men—men who had no law, as he had every reason to believe—he was instantly taken in and made one of them.
 
"But no more talk tonight," said Pollard. "I can see you're played out.
I'll show you the room."
He caught a lantern from the wall as he spoke⁵ and began to lead the way up the stairs to the balcony. He pointed⁶ out the advantages of the house as he spoke.
 
"Not half bad—this house, eh?" he said proudly. "And who d'you think planned it? Your old man, kid. It was Black Jack Hollis himself that done it! He was took off sudden before he'd had a chance to work it out and build it. But I used his ideas in this the same's I've done in other things. His idea was a house like a ship.
 
"They build a ship in compartments⁷, eh? Ship hits a rock, water comes in. But it only fills one compartment⁸, and the old ship still floats. Same with this house. You seen them walls. And the walls on the outside ain't the only thing. Every partition is the same thing, pretty near; and a gent could stand behind these doors safe as if he was a mile away from a gun. Why? Because they's a nice little lining⁹ of the best steel you ever seen in the middle of 'em.
 
"Cost a lot. Sure. But look at us now. Suppose a posse was to rush the house. They bust¹⁰ into the kitchen side. Where are they? Just the same as if they hadn't got in at all. I bolt the doors from the inside of the big room, and they're shut out agin. Or suppose they take the big room? Then a couple of us slide out on this balcony and spray 'em with lead. This house ain't going to be took till the last room is filled full of the sheriff's men!"
 
He paused on the balcony and looked proudly over the big, baronial room below them. It seemed huger than ever from this viewpoint, and the men below them were dwarfed¹¹. The light of the lanterns did not extend all the way across it, but fell in pools here and there, gleaming faintly on the men below.
 
"But doesn't it make people suspicious to have a fort like this built on the hill?" asked Terry.
 
"Of course. If they knew. But they don't know, son, and they ain't going to find out the lining of this house till they try it out with lead."
 
He brought Terry into one of the bedrooms and lighted a lamp. As the flare¹² steadied in the big circular oil burner and the light spread, Terry made out a surprisingly comfortable apartment. There was not a bunk¹³, but a civilized¹⁴ bed, beside which was a huge, tawny¹⁵ mountain-lion skin softening¹⁶ the floor. The window was curtained in some pleasant blue stuff, and there were a few spots of color on the wall—only calendars, some of them, but helping¹⁷ to give a livable impression for the place.
 
"Kate's work," grinned Pollard proudly. "She's been fixing these rooms up all out of her own head. Never got no ideas out of me. Anything you might lack, son?"
 
Terry told him he would be very comfortable, and the big man wrung¹⁸ his hand again as he bade him good night.
 
"The best work that Denver ever done was bringing you to me," he declared. "Which you'll find it out before I'm through. I'm going to give you a home!" And he strode away before Terry could answer.
 
The rather rare consciousness of having done a good deed swelled¹⁹ in the heart of Joe Pollard on his way down from the balcony. When he reached the floor below, he found that the four men had gone to bed and left Denver alone, drawn²⁰ back from the light into a shadowy corner, where he was flanked by the gleam of a bottle of whisky on the one side and a shimmering²¹ glass on the other. Although Pollard was the nominal²² leader, he was in secret awe²³ of the yegg. For Denver was an "in-and-outer." Sometimes he joined them in the West; sometimes he "worked" an Eastern territory. He came and went as he pleased, and was more or less a law to himself. Moreover, he had certain qualities of silence and brooding that usually disturbed the leader. They troubled him now as he approached the

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