of-beats.

"Dale, come out!" called Roy, sharply.

The hunter moved with his swift, noiseless agility. Helen and Bo
followed, halting in the door.

"Thet's Las Vegas," whispered Dale.

To Helen it seemed that the cowboy's name changed the very atmosphere.

Voices were heard at the gate; one that, harsh and quick, sounded like
Carmichael's. And a spirited horse was pounding and scattering
gravel. Then a lithe figure appeared, striding up the path. It was
Carmichael--yet not the Carmichael Helen knew. She heard Bo's strange
little cry, a corroboration of her own impression.

Roy might never have been shot, judging from the way he stepped out,
and Dale was almost as quick. Carmichael reached them--grasped them with
swift, hard hands.

"Boys--I jest rode in. An' they said you'd found her!"

"Shore, Las Vegas. Dale fetched her home safe an' sound.... There she
is."

The cowboy thrust aside the two men, and with a long stride he faced the
porch, his piercing eyes on the door. All that Helen could think of his
look was that it seemed terrible. Bo stepped outside in front of Helen.
Probably she would have run straight into Carmichael's arms if some
strange instinct had not withheld her. Helen judged it to be fear; she
found her heart lifting painfully.

"Bo!" he yelled, like a savage, yet he did not in the least resemble
one.

"Oh--Tom!" cried Bo, falteringly. She half held out her arms.

"You, girl?" That seemed to be his piercing query, like the quivering
blade in his eyes. Two more long strides carried him close up to her,
and his look chased the red out of Bo's cheek. Then it was beautiful to
see his face marvelously change until it was that of the well remembered
Las Vegas magnified in all his old spirit.

"Aw!" The exclamation was a tremendous sigh. "I shore am glad!"

That beautiful flash left his face as he wheeled to the men. He wrung
Dale's hand long and hard, and his gaze confused the older man.

"RIGGS!" he said, and in the jerk of his frame as he whipped out the
word disappeared the strange, fleeting signs of his kindlier emotion.

"Wilson killed him," replied Dale.

"Jim Wilson--that old Texas Ranger!... Reckon he lent you a hand?"

"My friend, he saved Bo," replied Dale, with emotion. "My old cougar an'
me--we just hung 'round."

"You made Wilson help you?" cut in the hard voice.

"Yes. But he killed Riggs before I come up an' I reckon he'd done well
by Bo if I'd never got there."

"How