d him on the raw at last. Something that was near to pain
rested for a second in his eyes. "Murder is a hard name, ma'am. And I
didn't say he was daid, or any of the three," came his gentle answer.

"You MEANT to kill them, anyhow."

"Did I?" There was the ghost of a sad smile about his eyes.

"The way you act, a person might think you one of Ned Bannister's men,"
she told him, scornfully.

"I expect you're right."

She repented her a little at a charge so unjust. "If you are not ashamed
of your name why are you so loath to part with it?"

"Y'u didn't ask me my name," he said, a dark flush sweeping his face.

"I ask it now."

Like the light from a snuffed candle the boyish recklessness had gone
out of his face. His jaws were set like a vise and he looked hard as
hammered steel.

"My name is Bannister," he said, coldly.

"Ned Bannister, the outlaw," she let slip, and was aware of a strange
sinking of the heart.

It seemed to her that something sinister came to the surface in his
handsome face. "I reckon we might as well let it go at that," he
returned, with bitter briefness.

CHAPTER 2. THE KING OF THE BIG HORN COUNTRY

Two months before this time Helen Messiter had been serenely teaching a
second grade at Kalamazoo, Michigan, notwithstanding the earnest efforts
of several youths of that city to induce her to retire to domesticity
"What's the use of being a schoolmarm?" had been the burden of their
plaint. "Any spinster can teach kids C-A-T, Cat, but only one in
several thousand can be the prettiest bride in Kalamazoo." None of them,
however, had been able to drive the point sufficiently home, and it
is probable that she would have continued to devote herself to Young
America if an uncle she had never seen had not died without a will and
left her a ranch in Wyoming yclept the Lazy D.

When her lawyer proposed to put the ranch on the market Miss Helen had a
word to say.

"I think not. I'll go out and see it first, anyhow," she said.

"But really, my dear young lady, it isn't at all necessary. Fact is,
I've already had an offer of a hundred thousand dollars for it. Now, I
should judge that a fair price."

"Very likely," his client interrupted, quietly. "But, you see, I don't
care to sell."

"Then what in the world are you going to do with it?"

"Run it."

"But, my dear Miss Messiter, it isn't an automobile or any other kind of
toy. You must remember that it takes a business head and a great de