ur orders through Mac, yuh don't need
me any longer for your foreman," bullied Morgan.

"You take it right, sir," came her crisp reply. "McWilliams will be my
foreman from to-day."

The man's face, malignant and wolfish, suddenly lost its mask. That she
would so promptly call his bluff was the last thing he had expected.
"That's all right. I reckon yuh think yuh know your own business, but
I'll put it to yuh straight. Long as yuh live you'll be sorry for this."

And with that he wheeled away.

She turned to her new foreman and found him less radiant than she could
have desired. "I'm right sorry y'u did that. I'm afraid y'u'll make
trouble for yourself," he said quietly.

"Why?"

"I don't know myself just why." He hesitated before adding: "They say
him and Bannister is thicker than they'd ought to be. It's a cinch that
he's in cahoots somehow with that Shoshone bunch of bad men."

"But--why, that's ridiculous. Only this morning he was trying to kill
Bannister himself."

"That's what I don't just savvy. There's a whole lot about that business
I don't get next to. I guess Bannister is at the head of them.
Everybody seems agreed about that. But the whole thing is a tangle of
contradiction to me. I've milled it over a heap in my mind, too."

"What are some of the contradictions?"

"Well, here's one right off the bat, as we used to say back in the
States. Bannister is a great musician, they claim; fine singer, and
all that. Now I happen to know he can't sing any more than a bellowing
yearling."

"How do you know?" she asked, her eyes shining with interest.

"Because I heard him try it. 'Twas one day last summer when I was out
cutting trail of a bunch of strays down by Dead Cow Creek. The day was
hot, and I lay down behind a cottonwood and dropped off to sleep. When
I awakened it didn't take me longer'n an hour to discover what had woke
me. Somebody on the other side of the creek was trying to sing. It was
ce'tainly the limit. Pretty soon he come out of the brush and I seen it
was Bannister."

"You're sure it was Bannister?"

"If seeing is believing, I'm sure."

"And was his singing really so bad?"

"I'd hate ever to hear worse."

"Was he singing when you saw him?"

"No, he'd just quit. He caught sight of my pony grazing, and hunted
cover real prompt."

"Then it might have been another man singing in the thicket."

"It might, but it wasn't. Y'u see, I'd followed him through the bush by
his song, and