man who had been her friend. She curbed her
fears, clamped down her startled maiden modesty, parried his advances
with light words and gay smiles. Once Neil passed, and his eyes asked
a question. She shook her head, unnoticed by Leroy. She would fight her
own battle as long as she could. It was to divert him that she proposed
they go down to the corral and look at the wild cattle the men had
driven down. She told him she had heard a great deal about them, but had
never seen any. If he would go with her she would like to look at them.

The outlaw was instantly at her service, and they sauntered across. In
her hand the girl carried a closed umbrella she had been using to keep
off the sun.

They stood at the gate of the corral looking at the long-legged, shaggy
creatures, as wild and as active almost as hill deer. On horseback one
could pass to and fro among them without danger, but in a closed corral
a man on foot would have taken a chance. Nobody knew this better than
Leroy. But the liquor was still in his head, and even when sober he was
reckless beyond other men.

"They need water," he said, and with that opened the gate and started
for the windmill.

He sauntered carelessly across, with never a glance at the dangerous
animals among which he was venturing. A great bull pawed the ground
lowered its head, and made a rush at the unconscious man. Alice called
to him to look out, then whipped open the gate and ran after him. Leroy
turned, and, in a flash, saw that which for an instant filled him with a
deadly paralysis. Between him and the bull, directly in the path of its
rush, stood this slender girl, defenseless.

Even as his revolver flashed out from the scabbard the outlaw knew he
was too late to save her, for she stood in such a position that he could
not hit a vital spot. Suddenly her umbrella opened in the face of the
animal. Frightened, it set its feet wide and slithered to a halt so
close to her that its chorus pierced the silk of the umbrella. With one
hand Leroy swept the girl behind him; with the other he pumped three
bullets into the forehead of the bull. Without a groan it keeled over,
dead before it reached the ground.

Alice leaned against the iron support of the windmill. She was so white
that the man expected her to sink down. One glance showed him other
cattle pawing the ground angrily.

"Come!" he ordered, and, putting an arm round her waist, he ran with her
to the gate. Yet a moment, and they