f our way more'n a mile to cross Bannister's trail,"
he drawled.

"Do you wear this for an ornament? Are you upholstered with hardware to
catch the eyes of some girl?" she asked, touching with the end of her
whip the revolver in the holster strapped to his chaps.

His serene, gay smile flashed at her. "Are y'u ordering me to go out and
get Ned Bannister's scalp?"

"No, I am not," she explained promptly. "What I am trying to discover is
why you all seem to be afraid of one man. He is only a man, isn't he?"

A veil of ice seemed to fall over the boyish face and leave it chiseled
marble. His unspeaking eyes rested on the swarthy foreman as he
answered:

"I don't know what he is, ma'am. He may be one man, or he may be a
hundred. What's more, I ain't particularly suffering to find out. Fact
is, I haven't lost any Bannisters."

The girl became aware that her foreman was looking at her with a wary
silent vigilance sinister in its intensity.

"In short, you're like the rest of the people in this section. You're
afraid."

"Now y'u're shoutin', Miss Messiter. I sure am when it comes to shootin'
off my mouth about Bannister."

"And you, Mr. Morgan?"

It struck her that the young puncher waited with a curious interest for
the answer of the foreman.

"Did it look like I was afraid this mawnin', ma'am?" he asked, with
narrowed eyes.

"No, you all seemed brave enough then, when you had him eight to one."

"I wasn't there," hastily put in McWilliams. "I don't go gunning for my
man without giving him a show."

"I do," retorted Morgan cruelly. "I'd go if we was fifty to one. We'd
'a' got him, too, if it hadn't been for Miss Messiter. 'Twas a chance we
ain't likely to get again for a year."

"It wasn't your fault you didn't kill him, Mr. Morgan," she said,
looking hard at him. "You may be interested to know that your last shot
missed him only about six inches, and me about four."

"I didn't know who you were," he sullenly defended.

"I see. You only shoot at women when you don't know who they are." She
turned her back on him pointedly and addressed herself to McWilliams.
"You can tell the men working on this ranch that I won't have any more
such attacks on this man Bannister. I don't care what or who he is. I
don't propose to have him murdered by my employees. Let the law take him
and hang him. Do you hear?"

"I ce'tainly do, and the boys will get the word straight," he replied.

"I take it since yuh are giving yo