for y'u getting lead
poisoning."

"Indeed!" Their visitor looked politely interested. "This solicitude for
me is very touching. I observe that both of you are carefully blocking
me from the bunkhouse in order to prevent another practice-shot. If I
can't persuade you to join me in a ride, Miss Messiter, I reckon I'll
go while I'm still unpunctured." He bowed, and gathered the reins for
departure.

"One moment! Mr. McWilliams and I are going with you," the girl
announced.

"Changed your mind? Think you'll take a little pasear, after all?"

"I don't want to be responsible for your killing. We'll see you safe off
the place," she answered curtly.

The foreman fell in on one side of Bannister, his mistress on the other.
They rode in close formation, to lessen the chance of an ambuscade.
Bannister alone chatted at his debonair ease, ignoring the
responsibility they felt for his safety.

"I got my ride, after all," he presently chuckled. "To be sure, I wasn't
expecting Mr. McWilliams to chaperon us. But that's an added pleasure."

"Would it be an added pleasure to get bumped off to kingdom come?"
drawled the foreman, giving a reluctant admiration to his aplomb.

"Thinking of those willing boys of yours again, are you?" laughed
Bannister. "They're ce'tainly a heap prevalent with their hardware, but
their hunting don't seem to bring home any meat."

"By the way, how IS your ankle, Mr. Bannister? I forgot to ask." This
shot from the young woman.

He enjoyed it with internal mirth. "They did happen on the target that
time," he admitted. "Oh, it's getting along fine, but I aim to do most
of my walking on horseback for a while."

They swept past the first dangerous grove of cottonwoods in safety, and
rounded the boundary fence corner.

"They're in that bunch of pines over there," said the foreman, after a
single sweep of his eyes in that direction.

"Yes, I see they are. You oughtn't to let your boys wear red bandannas
when they go gunning, Miss Messiter. It's an awful careless habit."

Helen herself could see no sign of life in the group of pines, but she
knew their keen, trained eyes had found what hers could not. Riding with
one or another of her cowboys, she had often noticed how infallibly they
could read the country for miles around. A scattered patch on a distant
hillside, though it might be a half-hour's ride from them, told them a
great deal more than seemed possible. To her the dark spots sifted on
that s