McWilliams had climbed lazily to the top board of the fence. He was an energetic youth, but he liked to do his thinking at his ease. Now, as his gaze still followed its lodestar, he suddenly slipped from his seat and ran forward, pulling the revolver from its scabbard as he ran. Into his eyes had crept a tense alertness, the shining watchfulness of the tiger ready for its spring.
The cause of the change in the foreman of the Lazy D was a simple one, and on its face innocent enough. It was merely that a stranger had swung in casually at the gate of the short stable lane, and was due to meet Miss Messiter in about ten seconds. So far good enough. A dozen travelers dropped in every day, but this particular one happened to be Ned Bannister.
From the stable door a shot rang out. Bannister ducked and shouted genially: “Try again.”
But Helen Messiter whirled her pony as on a half-dollar, and charged down on the stable.
“Who fired that shot?” she demanded, her eyes blazing.
The horse-wrangler showed embarrassment. He had found time only to lean the rifle against the wall.
“I reckon I did, ma'am. Y'u see—”
“Did you get my orders about this feud?” she interrupted crisply.
“Yes, ma'am, but—”
“Then you may call for your time. When I give my men orders I expect them to obey.”
“I wouldn't 'a' shot if I'd knowed y'u was so near him. Y'u was behind that summer kitchen,” he explained lamely.
“You only expect to obey orders when I'm in sight. Is that it?” she asked hotly, and without waiting for an answer delivered her ultimatum. “Well, I won't have it. I run this ranch as long as I am its owner. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma'am. I hadn't ought to have did it, but when I seen Bannister it come over me I owed him a pill for the one he sent me last week down in the coulee. So I up and grabbed the rifle and let him have it.”
“Then you may up and grab your trunk for Medicine Hill. Shorty will drive you tomorrow.”
When she returned to her unexpected guest, Helen found him in conversation with McWilliams. The latter's gun had found again its holster, but his brown, graceful hand hovered close to its butt.
“Seems like a long time since the Lazy D has been honored by a visit from Mr. Bannister,” he was saying, with gentle irony.
“That's right. So I have come to make up for lost time,” came Bannister's quiet retort.
Miss Messiter did not know much about Wyoming human nature in the raw, but she had learned enough to be sure that the soft courtesy of these two youths covered a stark courage that might leap to life any moment. Wherefore she interposed.
“We'll be pleased to show you over the place, Mr. Bannister. As it happens, we are close to the hospital. Shall we begin there?”
Her cool, silken defiance earned a smile from the visitor. “All your cases doing well, ma'am?”
“It's very kind of you to ask. I suppose you take an interest because they are YOUR cases, too, in a way of speaking?”
“Mine? Indeed!”
“Yes. If it were not for you I'm afraid our hospital would be empty.”
“It must be right pleasant to be nursed by Miss Messiter. I reckon the boys are grateful to me for scattering my lead so promiscuous.”
“I heard one say he would like to lam your haid tenderly,” murmured McWilliams.
“With a two-by-four, I suppose,” laughed Bannister.
“Shouldn't wonder. But, looking y'u over casual, it occurs to me he might get sick of his job befo' he turned y'u loose,” McWilliams admitted, with a glance of admiration at the clean power showing in the other's supple lines.
Nor could either the foreman or his mistress deny the tribute of their respect to the bravado of this scamp who sat so jauntily his seat regardless of what the next moment might bring forth. Three wounded men were about the place, all presumably quite willing to get a clean shot at him in the open. One of them had taken his chance already, and missed. Their visitor had no warrant for knowing that a second might not any instant try his luck with better success. Yet he looked every inch the man on horseback, no whit disturbed, not the least conscious of any danger. Tall, spare, broad shouldered, this berry-brown young man, crowned with close-cropped curls, sat at the gates of the enemy very much at his insolent case.
“I came over to pay my party call,” he explained.
“It really wasn't necessary. A run in the machine is not a formal function.”
“Maybe not in Kalamazoo.”
“I thought perhaps you had come to get my purse and the sixty-three dollars,” she derided.
“No, ma'am; nor yet to get that bunch of cows I was going to rustle from you to buy an auto. I came to ask you to go riding with me.”
The audacity of it took her breath. Of all the outrageous things she had ever heard, this was the cream. An acknowledged outlaw, engaged in feud with her retainers over that deadly question of the run of the range, he had sauntered over to the ranch where lived a dozen of his enemies, three of them still scarred with his bullets, merely to ask her to go riding with him. The magnificence of his bravado almost obliterated its impudence. Of course she would not think of going. The idea! But her eyes glowed with appreciation of his courage, not the less because the consciousness of it was so conspicuously absent from his manner.
“I think not, Mr. Bannister” and her face almost imperceptibly stiffened. “I don't go riding with strangers, nor with men who shoot my boys. And I'll give you a piece of advice, sir. That is, to burn the wind back to your home. Otherwise I won't answer for your life. My punchers don't love you, and I don't know how long I can keep them from you. You're not wanted here any more than you were at the dance the other evening.”
McWilliams nodded. “That's right. Y'u better roll your trail, seh; and if y'u take my advice, you'll throw gravel lively. I seen two of the boys cutting acrost that pasture five minutes ago. They looked as if they might be haided to cut y'u off, and I allow it may be their night to howl. Miss Messiter don't want to be responsible for y'u getting lead poisoning.”
“Indeed!” Their visitor looked politely interested. “This solicitude for me is very touching. I observe that both of you are carefully blocking me from the bunkhouse in order to prevent another practice-shot. If I can't persuade you to join me in a ride, Miss Messiter, I reckon I'll go while I'm still unpunctured.” He bowed, and gathered the reins for departure.
“One moment! Mr. McWilliams and I are going with you,” the girl announced.
“Changed your mind? Think you'll take a little pasear, after all?”
“I don't want to be responsible for your killing. We'll see you safe off the place,” she answered curtly.
The foreman fell in on one side of Bannister, his mistress on the other. They rode in close formation, to lessen the chance of an ambuscade. Bannister alone chatted at his debonair ease, ignoring the responsibility they felt for his safety.
“I got my ride, after all,” he presently chuckled. “To be sure, I wasn't expecting Mr. McWilliams to chaperon us. But that's an added pleasure.”
“Would it be an added pleasure to get bumped off to kingdom come?” drawled the foreman, giving a reluctant admiration to his aplomb.
“Thinking