range to yourself for
your cattle. The fight's off so far as we personally are concerned."

A hint of deeper color touched her cheeks. Her manner had been cavalier
at best; for the most part frankly hostile; and all the time the man was
on an errand of good-will. Certainly he had scored at her expense, and
she was ashamed of herself.

"Y'u mean that you're going to respect the deadline? asked Mac in
surprise.

"I didn't say quite that," explained the sheepman. "What I said was
that I meant to keep on my side of it so far as the Lazy D cattle are
concerned. I'll let your range alone."

"But y'u mean to cross it down below where the Bar Double-E cows run?"

Bannister's gay smile touched the sardonic face. "Do you invite the
public to examine your hand when you sit into a game of poker, Mr.
McWilliams?"

"You're dead right. It's none of my business what y'u do so long as
y'u keep off our range," admitted the foreman. "And next time the
conversation happens on Mr. Bannister, I'll put in my little say-so that
he ain't all black."

"That's very good of you, sir," was the other's ironical retort.

The girl's gauntleted hand offered itself impulsively. "We can't be
friends under existing circumstances, Mr. Bannister. But that does not
alter the fact that I owe you an apology. You came as a peace envoy, and
one of my men shot at you. Of course, he did not understand the reason
why you came, but that does not matter. I did not know your reason
myself, and I know I have been very inhospitable."

"Are you shaking hands with Ned Bannister the sheepman or Ned Bannister
the outlaw?" asked the owner of that name, with a queer little smile
that seemed to mock himself.

"With Ned Bannister the gentleman. If there is another side to him I
don't know it personally."

He flushed underneath the tan, but very plainly with pleasure. "Your
opinions are right contrary to Hoyle, ma'am. Aren't you aware that a
sheepman is the lowest thing that walks? Ask Mr. McWilliams."

"I have known stockmen of that opinion, but--"

The foreman's sentence was never finished. From a clump of bushes
a hundred yards away came the crack of a rifle. A bullet sang past,
cutting a line that left on one side of it Bannister, on the other Miss
Messiter and her foreman. Instantly the two men slid from their horses
on the farther side, dragged down the young woman behind the cover
of the broncos, and arranged the three ponies so as to give her the
greate