bled off. Mormon wiped his face with his
bandanna. Suddenly his big body stiffened. He heard Molly's voice from
the cistern, frightened, then storming in anger. Mormon ran at a
sprinter's gait from the cottonwoods, along a side of the corral,
through the trees bordering the cistern. The girl was out of the
hammock, facing a man in riding breeches and puttees, his face concealed
for the moment by his hands. A sleeve of the girl's frock was torn away,
the outworn fabric in streamers. The man's hands came down and Mormon
recognized him for Jim Plimsoll, owner of the Good Luck Pool Parlors, in
the little cattle town of Hereford, where faro, roulette, chuckaluck and
craps were played in the back room, owner also of a near-by horse ranch.
There was blood on his face, the marks of finger nails.

Plimsoll jumped for the girl, caught her by one arm roughly. She
struggled fiercely, silently, striking at him with her free fist.
Mormon's gun flashed from its sheath as he shouted at the man. Plimsoll
wheeled, releasing Molly. His dark face was livid with rage, a pistol
gleamed as he plucked it from beneath the waistband of his riding
breeches. The turf spatted between his feet as Mormon fired.

"Got the drop on ye, Jim! Nex' shot'll be higher. Shove that gun back.
Now then," as Plimsoll sullenly obeyed, "what in hell do you figger
yo're doin'?" Mormon's jovial face was tense, his voice stern and cold,
he stood crouched forward a little from the hips, legs apart, his gun a
thing of menace that seemed to be alive, snaky.

"Keep still," he ordered, walking toward the pair, his gun covering
Plimsoll, the cheery blue of his eyes changed to the color of ice in the
shade, the pupils mere pin-pricks. Molly glanced at him once, fingers
caressing her bruised arm.

"He kissed me while I was asleep, the damned skunk!" she flared. "I'd
sooner hev rattlesnake-pizen on my lips!" She stopped rubbing the arm to
scrub fiercely at her mouth with the back of her hand.

"It ain't the first time I've kissed you," said Plimsoll. "Yore dad
didn't stop me from doin' it. I didn't notice you scratching like a
wildcat either. Where's your dad? And where do you come in on this deal
between old friends?" he demanded of Mormon.

"Her dad's dead," said Mormon simply. "Molly is stayin' fo' a spell at
the Three Star. Sandy Bourke, Sam Manning an' me is lookin' out fo'
her, an' we aim to do a good job of it. Sabe?"

Plimsoll's thin-lipped mouth sneered with hi