ere
overnight. I reckon I'll keep my own seat outside, Sam." And Roberts
swung himself up.

The old soldier climbed in, chuckling to himself. It had been the
neatest piece of work he had ever seen. The big body of the cowboy had
been between Ramona and her tormentor, so that she did not know what had
taken place. She did know, however, that the woman-killer had been
obliterated swiftly from her path.

"Did you ever see anything like the way he got shet o' that drummer?"
Sam asked his neighbor in a whisper. "I'll bet that doggoned masher will
be hard to find when Jack's on the map. He's some go-getter boy, Jack
Roberts is."

Meanwhile Jack was flagellating himself. It was his bad luck always to
be associated in the mind of Miss Wadley with violence. He had beaten up
the brother whom she was now mourning. He had almost been the cause of
her own death. Now a third time she saw him in the role of a
trouble-maker. To her, of course, he could be nothing but a bully and a
bad lot. The least he could do was to make himself as inconspicuous as
possible for the rest of the journey.

Man may shuffle the pack, but when all is done woman is likely to cut
the cards. The driver stopped at Tin Cup Creek to water the horses. To
Jack, sitting on the box, came the cattle-drover with orders.

"The young lady has somethin' to say to you, Tex. You're to swap seats
with me."

The lean, bronzed young man swung down. He had, when he wished, a
wooden face that told no tales. It said nothing now of a tide of blood
flushing his veins.

By a little gesture the girl indicated the seat beside her. Not till the
creaking of the moving stage drowned her words did she speak. Her eyes
were dilated with excitement.

"I overheard them talking in the back seat," she said. "They think
there's going to be a lynching at Tascosa--that the mob is going to hang
the Mexican who killed my brother. Are you going to let them do it?"

"Not in this year of our Lord, Miss Wadley," he answered evenly.

"Can you stop them?"

"That's what I draw a dollar a day for."

"You mustn't let them do it!" she cried, a little wildly. "Let the law
punish him!"

"Suits me. I'll try to persuade the boys to look at it that way."

"But what can you do? You're only a boy."

With a grim little smile he paraphrased Roy Bean's famous phrase: "I'm
law east of the Pecos right now, Miss Wadley. Don't you worry. The
Dinsmores won't get him if I can help it."

"I might speak