hemselves blankly upon her face. "Me? Damaging property? Miss Hallman,
you don't know me yet!" Which was perfectly true. "What shacks are you
talking about? In what gulch? All the shacks I've seen so far have been
stuck up on bald pinnacles where the blizzards will hit 'em coming
and going next winter." He glanced again at Miss Allen with a certain
sympathetic foretaste of what she would suffer next winter if she stayed
in her shack.

"Don't try to play innocent, Mr. Green." Florence Grace Hallman drew her
brows together. "We all know perfectly well who dragged those shacks off
the claims last night."

"Don't you mean that you think you know? I'm afraid you've kinda taken
it for granted I'd be mixed up in any deviltry you happened to hear
about. I've got in bad with you--I know that--but just the same, I hate
to be accused of everything that takes place in the country. All this is
sure interesting news to me. Whereabouts was they taken from? And when,
and where to? Miss Allen, you'll tell me the straight of this, won't
you? And I'll get my hoss and you'll show me what gulch she's talking
about, won't you?"

Miss Allen puckered her lips into a pout which meant indecision, and
glanced at Florence Grace Hallman. And Miss Hallman frowned at being
shunted into the background and referred to as she, and set her teeth
into her lower lip.

"Miss Allen prefers to choose her own company," she said with distinct
rudeness. "Don't try to wheedle her--you can't do it. And you needn't
get your horse to ride anywhere with us, Mr. Green. It's useless. I just
wanted to warn you that nothing like what happened last night will be
tolerated. We know all about you Flying U men--you Happy Family." She
said it as if she were calling them something perfectly disgraceful.
"You may be just as tough and bad a you please--you can't frighten
anyone into leaving the country or into giving up one iota of their
rights. I came to you because you are undoubtedly the ring-leader of the
gang." She accented gang. "You ought to be shot for what you did
last night. And if you keep on--" She left the contingency to his
imagination.

"Well, if settling up the country means that men are going to be shot
for going to bed at dark and asleeping till sun-up, all I've got to say
is that things ain't like they used to be. We were all plumb peaceful
here till your colony came, Miss Hallman. Why, the sheriff never got out
this way often enough to know the trails!