of lead. I shoved Steele back of the bar, falling over Blandy as
I did so.

"When I got up Steele was leaning over the bar with a gun in each hand.
There was a hot fight then for a minute or so, but I didn't fire a shot.
Morton and his crowd were busy. Men ran everywhere, shooting, ducking,
cursing. The room got blue with smoke till you couldn't see, and then
the fight changed to the street.

"Steele and I ran out. There was shooting everywhere. Morton's crowd
appeared to be in pursuit of rustlers in all directions. I ran with
Steele, and did not observe his condition until suddenly he fell right
down in the street. Then he looked so white and so bloody I thought he'd
stopped another bullet and--"

Here Miss Sampson's agitation made it necessary for me to halt my story,
and I hoped she had heard enough. But she was not sick, as Sally
appeared to me; she simply had been overcome by emotion. And presently,
with a blaze in her eyes that showed how her soul was aflame with
righteous wrath at these rustlers and ruffians, and how, whether she
knew it or not, the woman in her loved a fight, she bade me go on. So I
persevered, and, with poor little Sally sagging against me, I went on
with the details of that fight.

I told how Steele rebounded from his weakness and could no more have
been stopped than an avalanche. For all I saw, he did not use his guns
again. Here, there, everywhere, as Morton and his squad cornered a
rustler, Steele would go in, ordering surrender, promising protection.
He seemed to have no thoughts of bullets. I could not hold him back, and
it was hard to keep pace with him. How many times he was shot at I had
no idea, but it was many. He dragged forth this and that rustler, and
turned them all over to Morton to be guarded. More than once he
protected a craven rustler from the summary dealing Morton wanted to see
in order.

I told Miss Sampson particularly how Steele appeared to me, what his
effect was on these men, how toward the end of the fight rustlers were
appealing to him to save them from these new-born vigilantes. I believed
I drew a picture of the Ranger that would live forever in her heart of
hearts. If she were a hero-worshiper she would have her fill.

One thing that was strange to me--leaving fight, action, blood, peril
out of the story--the singular exultation, for want of some better term,
that I experienced in recalling Steele's look, his wonderful cold,
resistless, inexplicable presen