at was going on in the sky and on the prairie was never lost.
To-day the sun rose as clear as a bell, flooding the fields with gold.
Lem was plowing from east to west, a quarter-mile furrow. Whether he
faced the mountains, answering the sunrise with a crimson glow, or the
yellow prairie sea, with bold buttes standing out upon it like
rock-bound islands, he could not go amiss. His eye met nothing, his
thoughts touched upon nothing, which could jar upon his peaceful mood.
The horses plodded steadily on with hanging heads; the plow responded
like a live thing to his guidance; he knew that the long narrow furrow
he was leaving behind him was as straight as the wake of a boat in
still water. After all, ranch life was a fine thing. A man must be the
better for breathing such air; a man must be the wiser for living so
close to good old Mother Earth; a man must be--hark! Was that Joe's pony
galloping across the field? Lem turned. No; the pony was a strange one.
And the rider?

Bub Quinn had leaped to the ground not ten feet from him. He had flung
the rein over the neck of his steaming bronco; but he himself was as
calm and as cool as though he had not ridden twenty miles before sunrise
at a break-neck gallop.

"I've come to settle accounts with you, mister," Quinn remarked in a
drawling voice.

If the fellow had raged and cursed, if he had seemed to be in a passion,
if his fists had been clenched, or the muscles of his face set, it would
not have been so appalling. But this deadly composure, the careless
indifference with which he held his pistol in his right hand, while his
left hung loosely at his side, was more than terrifying; it was fairly
blood-curdling.

Lem's hands had let the reins drop, and the horses had gone plodding on,
the plow lurching and swaying at their heels.

For an instant Lem's brain whirled.

Swing that girl, that _pretty_ little girl,
That _girl_ you left _behind you_!

His brain seemed to be whirling to the tune of that jingle.

"If you've got anything to say," drawled Quinn, fingering the trigger,
the pistol pointed at Lem's forehead--"if you've got anything to say,
now's your chance. Sorry I can't allow you time to make a will," he
added facetiously, "but I've got to get back to my work."

Lem's brain was clear now. There were no more jingles in it. Nothing was
there but an overwhelming conviction that, if the man did not shoot
quickly, Joe might arrive, and show Quinn his mistake.