cky
leaped into the fireglow and wrested the riding-whip from the hands of
the angry man who was plying it.

"Dare to touch a woman, would you?" cried the ranger, swinging the
whip vigorously across the broad shoulders of the man. "Take that--and
that--and that, you brute!"

But when Bucky had finished with the fellow and flung him a limp,
writhing huddle of welts to the ground, three surprises awaited him. The
first was that it was not a woman he had rescued at all, but a boy, and,
as the flickering firelight played on his face, the ranger came to an
unexpected recognition. The slim lad facing him was no other than Frank
Hardman, whom he had left a few days before at the Rocking Chair under
the care of motherly Mrs. Mackenzie. The young man's eyes went back with
instant suspicion to the fellow he had just punished, and his suspicions
were verified when the leaping light revealed the face of the showman
Anderson.

Bucky laughed. "I ce'tainly seem to be interfering in your affairs a
good deal, Mr. Anderson. You may take my word for it that you was the
last person in the world I expected to meet here, unless it might be
this boy. I left him safe at a ranch fifty miles from here, and I left
you a staid business man of Epitaph. But it seems neither of you stayed
hitched. Why for this yearning to travel?"

"He found me where I was staying. I was out riding alone on an errand
for Mrs. Mackenzie when he met me and made me go with him. He has
arranged to have me meet his wife in Mexico. The show wouldn't draw well
without me. You know I do legerdemain," Frank explained, in his low,
sweet voice.

"So you had plans of your own, Mr. Anderson. Now, that was right
ambitious of you. But I reckon I'll have to interfere with them again.
Go through him, kid, and relieve him of any guns he happens to be
garnished with. Might as well help yourself to his knives, too. He's so
fond of letting them fly around promiscuous he might hurt himself. Good.
Now we can sit down and have a friendly talk. Where did you say you was
intending to spend the next few weeks before I interrupted so unthinking
and disarranged your plans? I'm talking to you, Mr. Anderson."

"I was heading for Sonora," the man whined.

What Bucky thought was: "Right strange direction to be taking for
Sonora. I'll bet my pile you were going up into the hills to meet some
of Wolf Leroy's gang. But why you were taking the kid along beats me,
unless it was just cussedness."