"Ain't you no more worried than that?" The voice of the schoolteacher in reply was as smooth as running water.

But what can you expect of a gent that ain't got no more pride than to be a schoolteacher, eh?" Sinclair shook his head.

The schoolteacher drew his horse as far away as the trail allowed and rode on in silence.

I know maybe, all by myself!" He checked his horse and sat his saddle, eying Gaspar with such disgust, such concentrated scorn and contempt, that the schoolteacher winced.

" He favored the schoolteacher with another black look and then swung out of the saddle, throwing his reins.

"Why not?" The schoolteacher was desperately eager.

But what checked Sinclair was not the schoolteacher.

Here, again, the schoolteacher was wincing from the very memory of a crisis.

His respect for the schoolteacher rose somewhat.

" To his very real surprise the schoolteacher shook his head.

It was an amazing thing to see the sudden light that flooded the face of the schoolteacher.

" "If I doif I hear a syllable against you," cried the schoolteacher with a flare of color, "I'llI'll drive the words back into their teeth!

He found himself looking down into the quivering face of the schoolteacher.

" "You'll find," said the schoolteacher eagerly, "that I can stand it amazingly well.

"All right," replied the schoolteacher, but his voice quaked with weariness, and the cinch knot, drawn taut by the powerful hand of Jerry Bent, refused to loosen.

He had been partly won to Jig that day, but his better opinion of the schoolteacher was being fast undermined.

Not only that, but the head remained poised, hung over the schoolteacher's shoulder.

This brought a short cry of admiration and wonder from the schoolteacher, for which Sinclair rewarded him with one glance of contempt.

The schoolteacher watched him go, and when the forms had vanished, and only the echo of the whistling blew back, he looked up.

In that first burst of passion he wanted literally to wring the neck of the schoolteacher.

When his hand moved it was to take Jig under the chin with marvelous firmness and gentleness at once and lift the face of the schoolteacher.

And then I found this place and work as a schoolteacher.

Two men had been outlawed that dayJohn Gaspar, the schoolteacher who killed Quade, and Riley Sinclair, a stranger from the North.

To them she had been more formidable than a schoolteacher.

His wife had been, or was still, a schoolteacher.