his thanks aside impatiently "I didn't mean that. You have
forgotten to take my purse."

His gravity was broken on the instant, and his laughter was certainly
delightfully fresh. "I clean forgot, but I expect I'll drop over to the
ranch for it some day."

"We'll try to make to make you welcome, Mr. Bannister."

"Don't put yourself out at all. I'll take pot-luck when I come."

"How many of you may we expect?" she asked, defiantly.

"Oh, I allow to come alone."

"You'll very likely forget."

"No, ma'am, I don't know so many ladies that I'm liable to such an
oversight.

"I have heard a different story. But if you do remember to come,
and will let us know when you expect to honor the Lazy D, I'll have
messengers sent to meet you."

He perfectly understood her to mean leaden ones, and the humorous gleam
in his eye sparkled in appreciation of her spirit. "I don't want all
that fuss made over me. I reckon I'll drop in unexpected," he said.

She nodded curtly. "Good-bye. Hope your ankle won't trouble you very
much."

"Thank y'u, ma'am. I reckon it won't. Good-bye, Miss Messiter."

Out of the tail of her eye she saw him bowing like an Italian opera
singer, as impudently insouciant, as gracefully graceless as any stage
villain in her memory. Once again she saw him, when her machine swept
round a curve and she could look back without seeming to do so, limping
across through the sage brush toward a little hillock near the road. And
as she looked the bare, curly head was inclined toward her in another
low, mocking bow. He was certainly the gallantest vagabond unhanged.

CHAPTER 4. AT THE LAZY D RANCH

Helen Messiter was a young woman very much alive, which implies that she
was given to emotions; and as her machine skimmed over the ground to
the Lazy D she had them to spare. For from the first this young man had
taken her eye, and it had come upon her with a distinct shock that he
was the notorious scoundrel who was terrorizing the countryside. She
told herself almost passionately that she would never have believed it
if he had not said so himself. She knew quite well that the coldness
that had clutched her heart when he gave his name had had nothing to do
with fear. There had been chagrin, disappointment, but nothing in the
least like the terror she might have expected. The simple truth was that
he had seemed so much a man that it had hurt her to find him also a wild
beast.

Deep in her heart she resented the