ered another drink on the strength of the Texan's
admiration. "Mind, I don't say Ranse wasn't a good man. Mebbe I'm a
leetle mite better 'n him with a hogleg. Mebbe--"

"Ranse was good with a revolver all right, but sho! you make him look
like a plugged nickel when you go to makin' smoke, Dave," interrupted the
toady.

"Well, mebbe I do. Say I do. I ain't yet met up with a man can beat me
when I'm right. But at that Ranse was a mighty good man. They bushwhacked
him, I'll bet a stack of blues. I aim to git busy soon as I find out who
done it."

The red-headed man raised his voice a trifle. "Say, you kid--there at the
table--come here an' hold these ropes! See you don't let the hawses at
the other end of 'em git away!"

Slowly the boy turned, pushing his chair round so that he half-faced the
group before the bar. He neither rose nor answered.

"Cayn't you-all hear?" demanded the man with the shock of unkempt, red
hair.

"I hear, but I'm not comin' right away. When I do, you'll wish I hadn't."

If a bomb had exploded at his feet Hugh Roush could not have been more
surprised. He was a big, rough man, muscular and sinewy, and he had been
the victor of many a rough-and-tumble fight. On account of his reputation
for quarrelsomeness men chose their words carefully when they spoke to
him. That this little fellow with the smooth, girlish face and the small,
almost womanish hands and feet should defy him was hard to believe.

"Come a-runnin', kid, or I'll whale the life out of you!" he roared.

"You didn't get me right," answered the boy in a low, clear voice. "I'm
not comin' till I get ready, Hugh Roush."

The wolf snap of the boy's jaw, the cold glitter in his eyes, might have
warned Roush and perhaps did. He wondered, too, how this stranger knew
his name so well.

"Where are you from?" he demanded.

"From anywhere but here,"

"Meanin' that you're here to stay?"

"Meanin' that I'm here to stay."

"Even if I tell you to git out of the country?"

"You won't be alive to tell me unless you talk right sudden."

They watched each other, the man and the boy. Neither as yet made any
motion to draw his gun, the younger one because he was not ready, Roush
because he did not want to show any premature alarm before the men taking
in the scene. Nor could he yet convince himself, in spite of the
challenge that rang in the words of the boy, of serious danger from so
unlikely a source.

Dave Roush had been watching the bo