c
pistol. On the instant the puncher's big revolver roared. The pistol
went spinning out of the hunter's hand. Through the smoke of the shot
the puncher leveled his weapon.

"Put up your hands!--put them up!" screamed the girl, urging her horse
forward.

The hunter obeyed, none too soon. For several moments he stood rigid,
glaring half dazed at the revolver muzzle and the cool hard face
behind it. Then slowly he twisted about to see who it was had warned
him. The girl had ridden up within a few feet.

"You--you _tenderfoot_!" she flung at him. "Are you locoed? Hadn't you
any more sense than to do that? Why, if Daddy hadn't told Mr. Gowan to
wait--"

"You shore would have got yours, you--rustler!" snapped the puncher.
"It was you, though, Miss Chuckie--your being here."

"But he's not a rustler, Kid," protested the girl. "Where are your
eyes? Look at his riding togs. If they're not tenderfoot, howling
tenderfoot--!"

"Just the same, honey, he's shot a yearling," said Knowles, frowning
at the culprit. "Suppose you let me do the questioning."

"Ah--pardon me," remarked the hunter, rebounding from apprehension to
easy assurance at sight of the girl's smile. "I would prefer to be
third-degreed by the young lady. Permit me to salute the Queen of the
Outlaws!"

He bent over the fingers of one hand to raise his silver-banded
sombrero by its high peak. It left his head--and a bullet left the
muzzle of the puncher's revolver. A hole appeared low down in the side
of the sombrero.

"That'll do, Kid," ordered the cowman. "No more hazing, even if he is
a tenderfoot."

"Tenderfoot?" replied Gowan, his mouth like a straight gash across his
lean jaws. "How about his drawing on me--and how about your yearling?
That bullet went just where it ought to 've gone with his hat down on
his head."

There was no jesting even of the grimmest quality in the puncher's
look and tone. He was very cool and quiet--and his Colt's was leveled
for another shot.

The hunter thrust up his hands as high as he could reach.

"You--you surely can't intend to murder me!" he stammered, staring from
the puncher to the cowman. "I'll pay ransom--anything you ask! Don't let
him shoot me! I'm Lafayette Ashton--I'll pay thousands--anything! My
father is George Ashton, the great financier!"

"New York?" queried Knowles.

"No, no, Chicago! He--If only you'll write to him!"

The girl burst into a ringing laugh. "Oh!" she cried, the moment she
could