een
something that awed me in the look of him.

I certainly felt proud to be standing with those two rangers, and for
the moment Buell and all his crew could not have daunted me.

"Hello! what's this?" inquired Dick, throwing back my coat; and,
catching sight of my revolver, he ejaculated: "Ken Ward!"

"Wal, Ken, if you-all ain't packin' a gun!" said Jim, in his slow,
careless drawl. "Dick, he shore is!"

It was now my turn to blush.

"Yes, I've got a gun," I replied, "and I ought to have had it the other
night."

"How so?" inquired Dick, quickly.

It did not take me long to relate the incident of the Mexican.

Dick looked like a thunder-cloud, but Jim swayed and shook with
laughter.

"You knocked him off the roof? Wal, thet shore is dee-lightful. It shore
is!"

"Yes; and, Dick," I went on, breathlessly, "the Greaser followed me,
and if I hadn't missed the trail, I don't know what would have happened.
Anyway, he got here first."

"The Greaser trailed you?" interrupted Dick, sharply.

When I replied he glanced keenly at me. "How do you know?"

"I suspected it when I saw him with two men in the forest. But now I
know it."

"How?"

"I beard Buell tell Stockton he had put the Greaser on my trail."

"Buell--Stockton!" exclaimed Dick. "What'd they have to do with the
Greaser?"

"I met Buell on the train. I told him I had come West to study forestry.
Buell's afraid I'll find out about this lumber steal, and he wants to
shut my mouth."

Dick looked from me to Jim, and Jim slowly straitened his tall form. For
a moment neither spoke. Dick's white face caused me to look away from
him. Jim put a hand on my arm.

"Ken, you shore was lucky; you shore was."

"I guess he doesn't know how lucky," added Dick, somewhat huskily. "Come
on, we'll look up the Mexican."

"It shore is funny how bad I want to see thet Greaser."

Dick's hard look and tone were threatening enough, yet they did not
affect me so much as the easy, gay manner of the Texan. Little cold
quivers ran over me, and my knees knocked together. For the moment my
animosity toward the Mexican vanished, and with it the old hunger to be
in the thick of Wild Western life. I was afraid that I was going to see
a man killed without being able to lift a hand to prevent it.

The rangers marched me between them down the street and into the corner
saloon. Dick held me half behind him with his left hand while Jim
sauntered ahead. Strangest of all the things