ed and stepped off the porch to get his pony.

A little later, after waving his hand to Ruth from a distance, he rode
away, his mind active, joy in his heart.

"You're a knowin' horse, Patches," he said confidentially to the pony.
"If you are, what do you reckon made her ask so many questions?" He
gulped over a thought that came to him.

"She was shootin' at the target, Patches," he mused. "But do you reckon
she was aimin' at me?"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE GUNFIGHTER

Red Owen, foreman of the Flying W in place of Tom Chavis, resigned, was
stretched out on his blanket, his head propped up with an arm, looking at
the lazy, licking flames of the campfire. He was whispering to Bud
Taylor, named by Randerson to do duty as straw boss in place of the
departed Pickett, and he was referring to a new man of the outfit who had
been hired by Randerson about two weeks before because the work seemed to
require the services of another man, and he had been the only applicant.

The new man was reclining on the other side of the fire, smoking, paying
no attention to any of the others around him. He was listening, though,
to the talk, with a sort of detached interest, a half smile on his face,
as though his interest were that of scornful amusement.

He was of medium height, slender, dark. He was taciturn to the point of
monosyllabic conversation, and the perpetual, smiling sneer on his face
had gotten on Red Owen's nerves.

"Since he's joined the outfit, he's opened his yap about three times a
day--usual at grub time, when if a man loosens up at all, he'll loosen up
then," Red told Taylor, glaring his disapproval. "I've got an idea that
I've seen the cuss somewheres before, but I ain't able to place him."

"His mug looks like he was soured on the world--especial himself. If I
had a twistin' upper lip like that, I'd sure plant some whiskers on it. A
mustache, now, would hide a lot of the hyena in him."

Owen stared meditatively at the new man through the flames. "Yes," he
said expressionlessly, "a mustache would make him look a whole lot
different." He was straining his mental faculties in an effort to
remember a man of his acquaintance who possessed a lower lip like that of
the man opposite him, eyes with the same expression in them, and a nose
that was similar. He did not succeed, for memory was laggard, or his
imagination was playing him a trick. He had worried over