s eyes.

"Gone in for baby-farming, have you, or robbing the cradle? Who's
playing the king in this deal? I----" The leer suddenly vanished from
his face, the tip of his tongue licked his lips. Mormon's gun was slowly
coming up level with his heart, steady as Mormon's gaze, finger
compressing the trigger.

"The law reckons you a man--so fur," said Mormon. "Yore pals 'ud pack a
jury to hang me fo' shootin' the dirty heart out of you, but--ef you
ever let out a foul word or a look about that gel, I'll take my chance
of their bein' enough white men round here to 'quit me. There ought to
be a bounty on yore scalp an' ears. You hear me, Jim Plimsoll, I'm
talkin' straight. Now git, head yore hawss fo' the short trail to
Hereford an' keep travelin'. Pronto!"

Plimsoll's pony was standing under the trees and the gambler turned and,
with an attempted laugh, swaggered toward it.

The threat to his personal safety, his desire to fling a sneer at
Mormon, seemed to have halted any correlation of the statement
concerning the death of the girl's father until now.

"If that's true about your dad," he said, "I'm sorry. How did he die?"

Sensing the hypocrisy of the shift to sympathy, the girl took a step
forward. Mormon's pupils contracted again; his finger itched to press
the trigger it touched.

"It's none of yore business," said the girl. "You git."

Plimsoll's eyes shifted to Mormon's big body, stiffening to the crouch
that prefaced shooting. He faced toward the trees again, flinging his
last words over his shoulder.

"None of my business? I don't agree with you there, you little
hell-weasel. Your father and me had more than one deal together. You and
I may have to do business together yet, Molly mine!"

Molly's teeth showed between her parted lips, her fingers were hooked.
Mormon anticipated her indignant leap. His gun spurted fire, the
expensive Stetson broadrim seemed lifted from Plimsoll's hair by an
invisible hand. With the report it sailed forward, side-slipped, landed
on its rim, perforated by a steel-nosed thirty-eight caliber bullet.

"I give you last warnin'," roared Mormon.

Plimsoll sprang ahead like a racer at the starter's shot, snatched at
his hat, missed it, let it lie as he ran on to his horse, mounted and
went galloping off. Mormon holstered his gun and swung about to Molly,
standing with crimson cheeks, blazing eyes and a young bosom turbulent
with emotions.

"I wisht you'd killed him. I wisht you'