now and then, "Red! Jee-mi-ny Ann! Red!"

"No, Hi," he went on, recovering himself with the same abruptness as he
used with his bronco, and looking at his friend with a face even more
than usually solemn, "your hayer ain't red, Hi; don't let any of your
relatives persuade you to that. 'Tain't red!" and he threatened to go
off again, but pulled himself up with dangerous suddenness. "It may be
blue, cerulyum blue or even purple, but red--!" He paused violently,
looking at his friend as if he found him a new and interesting object
of study upon which he could not trust himself to speak. Nor could he be
induced to proceed with the description he had begun.

But Hi, paying no attention to Bill's oration, took up the subject with
enthusiasm.

"She kin ride--she's a reg'lar buster to ride, ain't she, Bill?" Bill
nodded. "She kin bunch cattle an' cut out an' yank a steer up to any
cowboy on the range."

"Why, how big is she?"

"Big? Why, she's just a kid! 'Tain't the bigness of her, it's the nerve.
She's got the coldest kind of nerve you ever seen. Hain't she, Bill?"
And again Bill nodded.

"'Member the day she dropped that steer, Bill?" went on Hi.

"What was that?" I asked, eager for a yarn.

"Oh, nuthin'," said Bill.

"Nuthin'!" retorted Hi. "Pretty big nuthin'!"

"What was it?" I urged.

"Oh, Bill here did some funny work at old Meredith's round-up, but he
don't speak of it. He's shy, you see," and Hi grinned.

"Well, there ain't no occasion for your proceedin' onto that tact," said
Bill disgustedly, and Hi loyally refrained, so I have never yet got the
rights of the story. But from what I did hear I gathered that Bill, at
the risk of his life, had pulled The Duke from under the hoofs of a mad
steer, and that little Gwen had, in the coolest possible manner, "sailed
in on her bronco" and, by putting two bullets into the steer's head, had
saved them both from great danger, perhaps from death, for the rest of
the cattle were crowding near. Of course Bill could never be persuaded
to speak of the incident. A true western man will never hesitate to tell
you what he can do, but of what he has done he does not readily speak.

The only other item that Hi contributed to the sketch of Gwen was that
her temper could blaze if the occasion demanded.

"'Member young Hill, Bill?"

Bill "'membered."

"Didn't she cut into him sudden? Sarved him right, too."

"What did she do?"

"Cut him across the face with her quirt